Global Warming???

[La Jolla Renter]

If half the worlds PHDs, Al Gore and his Dems are right…

Clint and BC might be sitting in their beach chairs in Santee tossing back a few Buds enjoying there multi million dollar ocean front estates.

[Anonymous]

And so the debate finally connects back to the housing market after all:)

[no_such_reality]

Woa there hombre. Let me see if I understand what you are saying….You are saying that you want me to believe a science FICTION writer over peer reviewed science

Crichton does an excellent job of footnoting his references, all of which are valid scientific resources.

Glaciers are melting, yes, how much detailed information do we have? little actually. California has several hundreds glaciers. How many do we have a decent ice flow data on? Virtually none.

[Anonymous]

Woa, there again. Any Tom Dick or Gary with or without a PHD can write a scientific paper. Three words “Peer Reviewed Science”.

By the way… have you passed the GED yet… don’t worry… you’ll get it the next time.. LOL

[sdnativeson]

I’m still not following your logic RB. Are you saying that once I pass the GED I’ll be your intellectual peer?

[Anonymous]

sdn

Make no mistake. You will NEVER be my intellectual peer.

[sdnativeson]

LOL, a fact that I am fully cognizant of.

[Anonymous]

There is probably never going to be a 100% air tight case for either side of this issue. That’s why it is called a “theory of global warming.” You have a theory that has relevant evidence supporting it – just like the theory of evolution. There is a lot of not insignificant evidence that points to our actions contributing to an obvious warming trend this century and the rise of the industrial age. Maybe we are not the complete cause of whatever is happening, but there is no reason to doubt we are capable of making it worse – given the evidence that exists.

If a single volcanic eruption can change the global climate noticeably, then why can’t the negligent yearly creation of billions of tons of emissions by us cause noticeable changes as well?

It would be great if critics of this theory would come up with evidence to at least credibly refute the evidence linking our emissions to its affect on the climate. It seems that mostly I hear critics saying:

– we are not capable of doing that
– I am a scientist, and it just is not true
– it cannot be modelled perfectly, so you cannot say it exists
– my friends who are scientists think it bunk
– it’s a conspiracy
– blah, blah, blah
– XYZ’s article disproves it

These are meaningless statements that do not offer us any good alternative viewpoint. Why don’t the critics provide us with information showing that atmospheric carbon dioxide has had rates of growth during previous climate cycles anywhere equivalent to the past 100 years. Why don’t they provide us with information showing that carbon dioxide does not have a tendency to trap heat. Why don’t they show that we are not really pumping billions of tons of pollutants into the air each year.

I would rather error on the side of caution and give some merit to the theory that we are affecting the climate cycle. The cost of making significant changes are not that great that it will cause us any hardship. Besides, there are numerous advantages to taking action that have nothing to do with global warming. Less pollution in our cities, fewer health problems, and renewable energy. Most importantly, cutting our energy dependence on other countries would be in the best interest of all of us.

It’s just like a trial. Everyone can pull an expert out of their ass to prove their point. We do not have a picture showing the actual crime and who did it, but we sure do have a lot of items pointing to who at least one of the accomplices were – us.

[FutureSDguy]

Its refreshing to see some saner minds jump into this debate. With NBC News continually hammering “Global Warming and what we can do about it” into our minds every week, its no wonder that people are all too willing to throw science out the window and take anthrogenic (man-made) global warming as a given.

The IPCC, International Panel for Climate Change, part of UN, came up with a report that was largely written by 20 scientists. The other thousands are basically of hand-picked scientists, chosen apriori for their beliefs about Global Warming. Dissenters were not allowed to join. So much for healthy skepticism, critical thinking, and weighing multiple theories.

The IPCC was behind the deliberate manipulation of data to acheive what they wanted to show, an exponential rise in temperature in the last century (popularly known as the “hockey stick.”) Tree ring records that favored global warming were factored in the data, but magnified 370 times, while data that included the medieval warming period–which contradicted the agenda–was censored out. A later review found that with the tree ring data along with completely made-up (random) data still resulted in the hockey stick, hence proving nothing. So this graph was used to get nations on board to sign the Kyoto Treaty, a trillion dollar proposal to solve a non-existant problem. Scary stuff.

The UN tries to pull a snowjob to get the masses to believe that man-made CO2 is causing global warming, despite ice-core readings showing that CO2 rise happens after temperature rise (sometimes as much as 800 years), and despite there is no physical proof that CO2 reflects infrared back to the surface.

Climate scientists tend to be poor physicists. I could not find any material that shows laboratory demonstrations of CO2 reflection. In fact, electromagnetic radiation of all kinds reflect through colorless materials when there is a phase transition, i.e. gas-to-solid. That’s why clouds (water vapor) act as a green house gas.

95% of green house gases is water vapor. CO2 is second, and only a tiny fraction of it is man-made. In fact, .28% of all green house gases is man-made.

Greenland. It’s called that because it once *was* green. In the 1400’s, the Vikings colonized the area and became farmers. But global cooling set in and farmland became frozen over with permafrost. This cooling is called the Maunder Minimum.

We are coming out of a mini-ice age. The rate of temperature rise over the last century is relatively dramatic (0.8 degrees C), but this sort of temperature rise has been seen in geological records.

The medieval warming period brought temperatures that were even warmer than we see at the present. Either the horses upon which the Knights rode emitted lots of CO2, or the temperature change was natural.

As a previous poster said, we are just beginning to understand climate and we only recently really paid attention to temperature.

Someone once noticed that when sunspots become numerous the price of wheat fell (due to surplus). While that was a casual observation, it later suggests a link between sunspots and temperature. Scientists, the honest ones who aren’t paid by politicians, are still in the process of understanding it, and thankfully using the scientific method to validate their hypotheses.

Personally, I have always believed in the Occam’s Razor: the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one. Applying that here, the simplest explanation for global warming is that the sun is getting warmer. After doing some research, I found that the increase in solar radiance hasn’t increased that much to account for temperature change, but what is striking is the sunspot record. Using Beryllium-10 measurements, they have determined that sunspots actually completely disappeared for a long stretch of time, right smack during the Maunder Minimum! (Enjoy a video on this: http://capnbob.us/blog/?p=610). The actual link isn’t clear (to me at least), but there is evidence that the increase in cosmic rays resulting from sunspots give rise to low-level clouds on earth, which does warm the surface.

This kind of real science is coming out of the woodworks, folks. Some scientists even predict a return to colder temperatures by 2025. I don’t know exactly will happen and I’m not trying to put my weight against any particular theory (I’m only a curious person in search of truths). But what I do know is that the current antrogenic global warming is based on junk science and the amount of counter-evidence against it is quite abundant.

LostCat, who seems lost in more ways than one, said that as a population we can’t [typo correction mine] afford to ignore it.

Whether we ignore it, can afford to ignore it, or can’t afford to ignore it, it doesn’t matter when global warming is natural.

[kewp]

Well, I think this is somewhat on-topic for this board. After all, take a look at New Orleans/Florida and see what environmental catastrophe can to do to real estate!

Heck, look here. Remember the fires of years past? Global warming means longer, drier summers and a higher overall risk of this.

Our coastal development is entirely dependent on the status quo, even a small rise in ocean levels is going to seriously damage many communities.

Something that doesn’t get brought up enough in this debate is our water sources. SD is relies on the Colorado river, which in turn is fed by winter ice pack. Which is declining, year after year.

[FutureSDguy]

Easy Town: “Why don’t the critics provide us with information showing that atmospheric carbon dioxide has had rates of growth during previous climate cycles anywhere equivalent to the past 100 years.”

Why don’t you just look at the data. Here’s a start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Co2-temperature-plot.svg

(Notice that temperature rise precedes CO2 rise, which is opposite of what environmentalists would like to have in order to support their agenda.)

“Why don’t they provide us with information showing that carbon dioxide does not have a tendency to trap heat.”

Why don’t the scientists in support of AGW show that CO2 *does* have a tendanacy to trap heat? This is a theory that came out of seeing correlations between CO2 and temperature, but correlation does not mean causation.

But if you want a refutation, here is one: http://freenet-homepage.de/klima/indexe.htm. Too bad that energy of scientists have to be spent on refuting junk science instead of devoting time discovering truths.

“Why don’t they show that we are not really pumping billions of tons of pollutants into the air each year.”

Nobody disputes that. Reducing emissions will result in cleaner air–that’s easy to show. But will it result in cooling the Earth? (BTW, smog cools the Earth, so perhaps we should be polluting more, not less!)

Most of people only hear the anthrogenic global warming stuff, and assume its skeptics are ignorant. This is lazy. There is plenty of material out there that refutes AGW if you turn off your TV, take time away from your hippie friends, and go look for it.

You’re not a hippie? So sorry. We all make grand assumptions don’t we?

[kewp]

Wow, futureSDguy, I am actually impressed.

I’ve never seen more mis-information in one post in my lifetime. You should consider a career with the Bush administration.

“Climate scientists tend to be poor physicists. I could not find any material that shows laboratory demonstrations of CO2 reflection. In fact, electromagnetic radiation of all kinds reflect through colorless materials when there is a phase transition, i.e. gas-to-solid. That’s why clouds (water vapor) act as a green house gas.”

Wow. Just wow.

You have completely contradicted the entire field of quantum chromodynamics. I expect your nobel prize in physics is forthcoming? This is sarcasm, btw.

[sdnativeson]

The critics have ET. If you haven’t seen their data then you are looking in the wrong places. At least you started out acknowleding it as a theory (mostly) until your last sentence.

I disagree with your statement of “the cost of making significant changes are not that great that it will cause us any hardship” If we just started with now what is the “minimum” effort which is signing Kyoto which will cost conservately tens of billions of dollars in the very least and offers miniscule benefits that you will not see in your lifetime.

In the meantime the ramifications of implementing these “protocols” and intiatives reaches far beyond us in So.Cal discussing when the housing market drops enough that we can buy a nice house for only(!) 250,000.00. The majority of the world couldn’t comprehend our “reality”. My point? If someone is subsisting on a couple of dollars a day and is starving, do you think they are concerned about global warming?

Environmentalism is big business, the same as oil and if you look both carefully and objectively you can see their message is flawed – by the premise that they can manage or preserve nature (life) itself. Question their message and claims! Go travel in a third world country, get off the manicured beach or the trendy little tourist enclaves and see how much good the environmental lobby did by blackmailing governments to stop using ddt.

So much to say and write about this but space and time will not allow it. All I can say is do your homework and look at both sides, and when you’re done look at it from a perspective other than environmental and repeat the process. I hope some here will do that, it’s sad to see intelligent people behave like sheep.

[sdnativeson]

FutureSDGuy, is this what you are referring to?
http://www.physorg.com/news11710.html
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Cosmic_rays_and_climate.htm

[Anonymous]

THEORY VS. FACT

Hi all, I’ve been reading your posts on housing for the last few weeks and have really enjoyed the information. This is my first post and I find it strange that it is not about housing, but I digress….

Theory vs Fact:

Apologists usually will point out that something is Theory and not Fact when they want to confuse the general public about certain issues. When they lack their own data to argue a point, they like to bring doubt to the other side’s argument by saying that it is “just a theory”.

In science the term Theory means a working idea of how an observed phenomena or fact is happening. One well understood example of this concept is gravity.

Fact: The apple falls from the tree to the ground

Theory #1: Newton says it is because of a force called Gravity between two bodies, hence the apple falls.

Theory #2: Einstein says, what force? The Gravity of the Earth warps space-time and the apple is merely traveling through the curved space-time.

Both theories are correct and explain the observed phenomena in a measured repeatable way. You can see how two “theories” are describing how a particular observation or fact may be explained.

In Evolution Theory, we observe species change over time through the fossil record and in real time through viruses and bacteria. The Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection is then an attempt to explain why we observe the above phenomena.

Hence in Global Warming we observe that the ice caps are melting at a faster rate than previously known, the global temp is rising etc… etc… One theory is of course it’s all natural cycles, which really is really like saying it’s just suppose to be this way, but we don’t really know that either. The other is that we humans are the major cause.

What lends the latter theory some real credibility is that NOW we humans are a real force of nature ourselves, because of our huge population and ever growing fossil fuel usage. It certainly can be a coincidence that the rise in CO2 and Temperature rise just happens to coincide with our Industrial Revolution over the last 100 years. But considering that we impact the planet in a measurable way and the timing of it all is so convenient to our fossil fuel usage, the human caused global warming theory has a lot of merit.

Just FYI, thanks all.

[Author]

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