How Bad Is Global Warming?

[Sounder]

The biggest hurdle to get past in the AGW debate is that god probably doesn't exist.

Maybe god does not exist (at least in the commonly accepted sense), but old habits die hard and now with scientists as mediators between the common man and a really really far off god, we have the prospect of scientists filling the god role. This would not be a good long term formula for cultivating engagement and creativity of the general population.

Is this the basic purpose for creating and promoting these formulaic responses to reality?

The reasoning for thinking the way I do derives a realization that the suppression of ‘enthusiasm’ is at the core of a world historical conspiracy to maintain control in the hands of a limited group of people. Enthusiasm in modern terms would be encompassed by the words intuition and creativity.

Creativity and intuition are an ability to reorganize categories by stepping outside the constraints of socially imposed conceptions of facts and truth. As such, opening up to potentials of intuition and creativity is the one thing that can dismantle existing power structures.

But what is creativity or intuition? Is it a connection to Source through the medium of the ineffable? Or is there no such thing as the ineffable as the skeptics and materialists would have it?

And how can materialism (or AGW for that matter) even be science when the conclusion frames and defines the assumptions?


Thanks smiths, this gets to a point made earlier about the hazards of putting all of ones eggs in one basket.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but if I were dropped back into 2010 and had the opportunity again, I would make biodiversity loss the top of the pyramid of what we were trying to address, instead of focusing on the science of an odourless and invisible gas. By doing so, community engagement on some simple facts, such as the high chance of the koala species collapse in our lifetime without behaviour change, would be an easier “pub” conversation than the more challenging discussion around gases and climate science.

More importantly, the broader suite of tools required would have also been part of an easier discussion: the need for a national bio-banking scheme; national biodiversity corridors of scale and significance; the use of biomass and the role that trees can play in energy security and emissions trading; a serious, as opposed to piecemeal, crack at invasive species; and, importantly, a discussion of how urban planning can better embrace biodiversity gains. All things that we can see and feel. All things that are hard to deny are real.

[Ben D]

The biggest hurdle to get past in the AGW debate is that god probably doesn't exist.

I don't understand the scientifically related details of this hurdle you are referring to, can you elaborate please?

Fwiw, as I understand it from the point of view of climate science, there is no hurdle due to the belief in God or the disbelief in God, as climate science is a purely a materialist tool. Therefore your statement appears to make as much sense to me at the moment as...."the biggest hurdle to get past with AGW debate is that god probably does exist". Iow, religion is irrelevant when it comes to materialist climate science, that some atheists and theists may introduce it is beside the point....this is not science.

[Luther Blissett]

Antarctica could raise sea level faster than previously thought

8/14/2014 - Ice discharge from Antarctica could contribute up to 37 centimeters to the global sea level rise within this century, a new study shows. For the first time, an international team of scientists provide a comprehensive estimate on the full range of Antarctica’s potential contribution to global sea level rise based on physical computer simulations. Led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the study combines a whole set of state-of-the-art climate models and observational data with various ice models. The results reproduce Antarctica’s recent contribution to sea level rise as observed by satellites in the last two decades and show that the ice continent could become the largest contributor to sea level rise much sooner than previously thought.

“If greenhouse gases continue to rise as before, ice discharge from Antarctica could raise the global ocean by an additional 1 to 37 centimeters in this century already," says lead author Anders Levermann. “Now this is a big range – which is exactly why we call it a risk: Science needs to be clear about the uncertainty, so that decision makers at the coast and in coastal megacities like Shanghai or New York can consider the potential implications in their planning processes,” says Levermann.

Antarctica currently contributes less than 10 percent to global sea level rise

The scientists analyzed how rising global mean temperatures resulted in a warming of the ocean around Antarctica, thus influencing the melting of the Antarctic ice shelves. While Antarctica currently contributes less than 10 percent to global sea level rise and is a minor contributor compared to the thermal expansion of the warming oceans and melting mountain glaciers, it is Greenland and especially the Antarctic ice sheets with their huge volume of ice that are expected to be the major contributors to future long-term sea level rise. The marine ice sheets in West Antarctica alone have the potential to elevate sea level by several meters - over several centuries.

According to the study, the computed projections for this century’s sea level contribution are significantly higher than the latest IPCC projections on the upper end. Even in a scenario of strict climate policies limiting global warming in line with the 2°C target, the contribution of Antarctica to global sea level rise covers a range of 0 to 23 centimeters.

A critical input to future projections

“Rising sea level is widely regarded as a current and ongoing result of climate change that directly affects hundreds of millions of coastal dwellers around the world and indirectly affects billions more that share its financial costs,” says co-author Robert Bindschadler from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. “This paper is a critical input to projections of possible future contributions of diminishing ice sheets to sea level by a rigorous consideration of uncertainty of not only the results of ice sheet models themselves but also the climate and ocean forcing driving the ice sheet models. Billions of Dollars, Euros, Yuan etc. are at stake and wise and cost-effective decision makers require this type of useful information from the scientific experts.”

While the study signifies an important step towards a better understanding of Antarctica in a changing climate and its influence on sea level change within the 21st century, major modeling challenges still remain: Datasets of Antarctic bedrock topography, for instance, are still inadequate and some physical processes of interaction between ice and ocean cannot be sufficiently simulated yet.

Notably, the study’s results are limited to this century only, while all 19 of the used comprehensive climate models indicate that the impacts of atmospheric warming on Antarctic ice shelf cavities will hit with a time delay of several decades. “Earlier research indicated that Antarctica would become important in the long term,” says Levermann. “But pulling together all the evidence it seems that Antarctica could become the dominant cause of sea level rise much sooner.”

Article: Levermann, A., Winkelmann, R., Nowicki, S., Fastook, J.L., Frieler, K., Greve, R., Hellmer, H.H., Martin, M.A., Meinshausen, M., Mengel, M., Payne, A.J., Pollard, D., Sato, T., Timmermann, R., Wang, W.L., Bindschadler, R.A. (2014): Projecting Antarctic ice discharge using response functions from SeaRISE ice-sheet models. Earth System Dynamics, 5, 271-293 [DOI: 10.5194/esd-5-271-2014]

Weblink to the article: http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/5/271/2014/

+

According to National Geographic, the Antarctic will melt by 2100 if nothing changes from today’s carbon output and the sea level rise will make the world look like this [1900x950]
http://thelandofmaps.tumblr.com/post/93 ... -antarctic

[Ben D]

According to National Geographic, the Antarctic will melt by 2100 if nothing changes from today’s carbon output and the sea level rise will make the world look like this

Luther, that is just so nuts....please provide a direct to the Nat Geographic article if you think otherwise.

[Iamwhomiam]

Luther, that is just so nuts....please provide a direct to the Nat Geographic article if you think otherwise.

See, Ben, this is why I won't be providing you with links to specific information on sea level rise. It's all so easy to locate:

http://tinyurl.com/nkaxhqa

Ben wrote,

Now Iam...since you are always going on about the coming calamity caused by rising sea waters and loss of sea ice....just so we are both looking at the same stuff....please provide some data on it? Not rhetorical claims but the actual latest scientific measurements. Secondly please provide the evidence that melting glaciers and rising sea levels, to the extent there is, is caused by humans and not just natural climate change as a result of the planet being in an interglacial period?

And I've done it before and each time you attempt, but fail to refute the findings. The last time I mentioned the melting of Antarctic Ice, you claimed melting ice floating in water won't increase the height of our seas. But Antarctica is a land mass with a 2 mile thick ice sheet, similar but much vaster than Greenland's and neither of these, nor are our mountain glaciers, ice floating on water and all are melting faster than ever before recorded.

Ben, to believe agw is a worldwide conspiracy of scientists working under orders of a secret worldwide cabal is simply nuts; seriously, it's a logistical impossibility.

And it's a true pity you do not recognize whom it is that benefits from denying the reality that global warming is being exacerbated by man's ever-increasing pollutants.

Like I said, anyone can chime in and take part in the IPCC syntheses. A paper need not be peer reviewed nor does its author need to be credentialed in order to be submitted to the IPCC.

However, if you want your paper to be published is some or other journal, you'll need to be credentialed in the field your paper specifically addresses.

Let's not forget why global warming became an issue at all. In the late 60s and early 70s we were expected to begin a period of cooling, a cyclical and repeating natural process, that was to either bring a mini Ice age or full-on deep freeze thousands of years long Ice Age. But that wasn't happening, as our scientists had predicted it should, and we experienced warming instead. So, what was it that was altering the natural cycle?

To answer why we were warming when we should be cooling we looked at all things known to add and hold heat that we unnaturally introduce into our environment, our air, our waters and lands. From this was extrapolated warming factors based upon an easy to understand baseline, Carbon Dioxide. (Many US states still have not completed their Greenhouse Gas Inventories.) From understanding the warming factors of our pollutants we can model certain projections based upon different capacities for warming of the pollutants by the quantities we introduce into the environment.

We needed to change our ways immediately, but obstructionist corporatists greed and foot-dragging won the battle and now all will be lost.

And they call me a fool for trying my best to prevent them from killing their great grandchildren. My only comfort comes from knowing you are your own great grandchildren and will reap the world then you now sow.

DO unto others...

[Ben D]

Iam....thanks but I already knew....the links you provided proved my point that the claim I referred to in Luther's post was absurd.....but I wanted Luther to find out for himself so he may be more discerning in future.

As to the rest of your post, let me be clear, I am not claiming the climate isn't changing, the data is there for all to see, but my position is that the cause is mostly natural. So if we leave the A of AGW, I am sure there is a lot we can agree on wrt climate change.

So lets distinguish the two....global warming and anthropogenic global warming.....if people want to blame global warming on humans, they need to provide scientific proof, not just copy and post the ubiquitous AGW propaganda, much of it absurd and/or scientifically unproven, available from the msm and blogosphere presuming humans are the cause...

[Iamwhomiam]

Lord Balto wrote,
And one of the things that positively exercises the defenders of scientific orthodoxy is the notion that there was advanced civilization in the last ice age, and I can't see blaming that period of global warming on too many campfires

Smug and all comfy in your ignorance? Guess you missed this. Dozens of 200' and smaller craters, all on one peninsula.

How wonderful you've come out from your dusty archives, Lord Baldy. Here's an comparative example of the AGW denier's argument you should be able to relate to that astounds me, really it does.

LB, your research is meaningless and your timeline is skewed most egregiously, erroneous due to huge gaps in time and data as to be laughable to serious, credentialed researchers of Ancient Egyptian Histories. Your personal fantasy is not valid theory because it lacks necessary substantiating evidence.

I know this to be true although I will offer no argument as to why. You really don't want to ask my CV or credentials cause you may be shocked by their profundity or the lack thereof.

Defend yourself from your research being attacked without reason, as climate scientists have had to do, generally, by buffoons, few corporate hacks and a wacky weatherman or two. However, rest assured I am not one of those.

(Odd, isn't it, how some uncredentialed researcher will adopt and follow state of the art scientific orthodoxy while conducting his research and putting forth unsubstantial theory, and yet utterly reject it when another researcher, by comparison, a climate scientist far better credentialed in his area of research, suggests the excesses and exceedances of societal demands contributes to the warming we are now experiencing.)

We have gathered sufficient evidence from the sciences to have determined probable consequences from man's polluting contributions to our air, lands and waters will be devastating to our civilization. The warming potential of the pollutants absorbing heat from our Sun grows tremendously daily. Physics and fluid dynamics show runaway global warming due to anthropogenic cause not to be a myth, but reality.

When one looks at the photograph below, the narrow bright blue band illuminated by sunlight is our atmosphere. You can stuff only so much stuff that warms and holds heat after being exposed sunlight in a closed system before its full radiative force becomes irrevocable.
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/Images/atmosphere.jpg
Every day that passes, thousands of acres worldwide are deforested, ever diminishing the chance the lungs of the earth will again respire adequately enough to function as they have for thousands of years, helping to keep our ecosystem in a natural balance.
Like a terrarium, without smokestacks.

All climate scientists worthy of being called such agree that if the permafrost warms and releases its methane as it surely seems to be doing, it will be "game over."

Death and destruction. Chaos and horror. Suffering.

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/AP203347184585-638x480.jpg
260 foot with crater located on the Yamal Peninsula estimated to be 200 to 300 feet deep. Ambient methane in crater 9x higher than normal average and that's after the belch.

Speaking of notable gaseous belches, this comes to mind, "That a minor 100- or 200-year blip in average temperature can be blamed on human activity by scientific types who clearly have no understanding of long term climate trends, and that vast armies of intellectuals can swallow this unjustified conclusion, positively astounds me, at least it would if I didn't understand the high level of ape psychology operating in human society."

Ah! You ascribe to yet another pseudoscience - Psychology!

My, you are just full of contradictions, aren't you. Perhaps you've read Toffler's "Future Shock"? This thread certainly proves we have our share of ape-brained humans; they ape the polluter's lie.

Funny how pointing a finger to identify probable shape-shifting lizards draws one's attention away from the pointer. A tactic I hear lizards are said to use often successfully themselves.

Whose side are you on boy, whose side are you on?

Lastly, because it's off-topic, I'll address this:
"Just as an example. let me quote you a few witnesses to the global catastrophe of AD 536 that led to the black plague and other nasty consequences:" Et cetera.

First, although off topic, I'd like you to substantiate how you tie these quotes to the topic being discussed, because I see it as only foolish and unnecessary diversion from serious discussion; second, I'd appreciate some verification, a citation or a link, linking the observations of those you quoted were describing to causing the plague. And please, do tell us what other nasty consequences this described lasting event brought down upon mankind.

Researchers today now recognize these observations may have been describing the effects of a monstrous and lasting Saharan sandstorm with updrafts carrying dust high into the atmosphere, but I think it's more likely to have been caused by a volcano.

I truly believe the time for us has passed. Greed won. Like any parasite, it sucked the lifeblood from that which sustained its life, and caused the death of both.

And that's what really irks my Buddhist ass, (yeah, being raised Christian left me with with all sorts of my own internal contradictions and conflicts, too), how astounding it is that those who complain about pollution while denying AGW have no understanding or recognition, though often reminded, that their position supports only wealthy corporate polluters who spend tens of millions for false propaganda denying reality in order to not only protect their profits, but to maximize them.

"Less regulation!" they cry. "Drill baby, drill." "More pipelines." "More oil and gas terminals" on or lake and rive shores.

Free will, free market exertion, while we choke and die from cancers rare or common, blood diseases, and more with increasing numbers of pregnancies not being carried successfully to term, infant and child premature development. Every woman of childbearing age has enough mercury in her body to cause fetal damage and every baby born today is born with its tiny body already burdened with more than 200 man made chemicals that are proven to have deleterious effects upon human health and longevity.

Denialist arguments only serve those who benefit from harming us and our children for profit. God gave mankind reign over the earth, some say, and some according to their own free will exploited the garden for their profit and have now assured its death.

So please tell me in your infinite wisdom what caused the end of the last glacial period in 9490±120 BC? What caused the Neolithic Subpluvial ca 7450 BC? What caused the end of the Neolithic Subpluvial ca 2950 BC? What caused the Roman Age Optimum in ca 200 BC? What caused the end of the Roman Age Optimum in ca AD 300? What caused the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period in ca AD 750? How is it that all of these global climatological events--not to mention all of the floods and famines and destroyed civilizations that have punctuated human civilization in the Holocene Period--were not caused by human industry, but the last minor blip is now believed to result from human activities because, well, humans are so important and their activities so incredibly powerful that they can cause what has hitherto only been caused by external forces on a cosmic scale.

As for the tree-ring minimum of AD 535-536, I mention it because it was the latest of a series of global catastrophes that fit a fairly obvious pattern--once you get off of your high horse and stop looking at these events in isolation and recognize them for what they were, externally caused global climatological events--that include the tree-ring minima and/or ice core acidity peaks at AD 536, 208 BC, 1159 BC, 1403 BC, 1628 BC, 2354 BC, 2690±80 BC, 3195 BC, 4450±100 BC, as well as the so-called 5.9 Kiloyear Event ca 3950 BC, the 8.2 Kiloyear Event ca 6250 BC, The Erdalen Event ca 7450 BC, Bond Event Event 7 ca 8350 BC, Bond Event 8 ca 9490±120 BC, and the Younger Dryas Impact Event ca 10950±100 BC.

I also mention it because it demonstrates the utter futility of trying to save the earth by switching to solar power when there have been major atmospheric pollution events that have affected the earth on a catastrophic scale that repeat themselves on a regular basis. Even if you can't bring yourself to recognize the external relations of the earth and insist on blaming them on volcanos and the like, these events have recurred on a regular basis that I have attempted to chronical at my web site: http://neros.lordbalto.com/ChapterEight.htm These are facts that folks like Elon Musk fail to take into account.

And no, I am not a "denier," as you so snidely call me. I am, in fact, much less of a denier than you are, my smug little friend. I, unlike you, recognize that there has been climate change as long as man has been on this planet, climate change that has shadowed the development of civilization even as it rose and fell, not from foreign invasions and "population pressure," and all of the other pseudoscientific nonsense propagated by degreed idiots and curricilum vitaed morons who can't see the forest for the trees. What I am denying is that it has anything to do with the activities of some ridiculous little naked ape with an ego the size of the solar system and an understanding of reality the size of a gnat's eyeball.

Not that it matters at all in this discussion, but let's remember which one of our egos chose for our screen name "Lord."

I'm not what anyone would claim to be an "educated man." It took me 5 years to escape high school. I was unprepared for college, so I only attended a single semester. Working for an aerospace company building the UK F-111a before attending college I invented a tool that cut down production time by 2/3. At 18 years of age I had top secret clearance issued to me by the FBI. Then I went to work for Union Carbide at their Park Avenue NYC headquarters but quit after 2 years being there, when my daughter was born. After about a year selling signage I began working at what was to become one of the country's best music venues.

My life was changed dramatically when I became a single parent at 26 after moving to Albany. And here began my true education. I learned first hand about poverty and class privilege. In fact, I administered the first ever UDAG grant to citizens to conduct a rat control program. And if you knew the history of the long entrenched Albany County Democrat machine, the most powerful and long-lived in the country, you'd understand the spectacular and historic victory this was for the common disenfranchised citizen.

So I spent a lot of time in the law library researching landlord tenant laws and actually represented people in small claims court, which has now adapted an ombudsman to fulfill this role. I was eventually appointed by a community organization to the local legal services board of directors

Others chose to appoint me to sit on the steering committee charged with disbursing the funds collected in NYS by Hands Across America participants. I've organized leaders in minority communities across the nation for annual meetings and demonstrations in DC, in alliance with National Peoples Action.

I was selected to run a program that provided low and moderate income elderly or disabled homeowners with free home repairs, a program that was made state-wide and given its own budget line by our first Governor Cuomo that is still operating 30 years later.

I am expert in only two things; solid waste management practices and technologies and structural steel fabrication, though I am a home maintenance specialist. I can take any two dimensional drawing and create a 3d model of what the drawing represents, whether for a building, a bridge or whatever. Conical sections were tricky without understand the math, but I learned well. I helped design and fabricate one of the first ammonia scrubbers ever built.

My environmentalism came late, in 1994 and my work is well known to activists here and abroad and my victories impact us all, to our benefit.

I grow bored quickly. I had my IQ tested twice in my 20s; 147 and 152, so I know I'm not all that smart. And I know lots of people so much smarter than me that I figure their IQs must be off the charts.

I'm a relatively simple man with simple values: to be honest; to help those I'm able to who are less fortunate or less able than me.

I have no CV and I really only remember preparing one resume long ago.

So now there should be no reason left to make unfounded presumptions about me. And that you have done, Lord Balto, more than once.

It's odd that you promote catastrophism without exactly saying so. But I do believe we have been impacted many times in the past with such effect as to alter our climate temporarily and to wipe-out past established civilizations. And I doubt any could cause it to rain for thousands of years where before it was desert.

So, you've put forth a theory that all climate changing cycles have only been caused by extraterrestrial originated impacts? Seems to me you kinda blame some events on volcanoes, too, at least according to the information you've linked us to

And no, I am not a "denier," as you so snidely call me.
<snip>
What I am denying is that it has anything to do with the activities of some ridiculous little naked ape with an ego the size of the solar system and an understanding of reality the size of a gnat's eyeball.

Yeah, you're a denier.

But even those climate scientists who deny human created pollutants are having a significant impact upon climate change recognize that man's contributions are indeed helping warm our atmosphere and oceans.

So that puts you in a very special class, to deny what is obvious to all climate researchers, whether considered skeptics or not.

So we should take the word of some ridiculous little naked ape with an ego the size of the solar system and an understanding of reality the size of a gnat's eyeball that some hypothetical history they've thought up is correct?

My hobby, Lord Balto, is quite similar to your quasi-historical research. I enjoy studying ancient religious and historical texts and consider Velikovsky seriously and believe much of his conjecture to be factual.

I'm glad you enjoy what you research. I won't argue it with you as I believe it would be pointless and unsatisfying to either of us.

I have no idea what caused or ended the time periods you've mentioned. How about you provide us with the answers to you questions what you believe were the true reasons that precipitated and ended them? That would be helpful.

External causes, you say?

[Iamwhomiam]

Ben, with all due respect, for many years I've provided you with specific measurements or links to more information from dozens of sources. You give me Watt. The science is available to all who wish to find it.

[Iamwhomiam]

Historically the role of the intellectual class is to develop and support the dominant narrative.

Do folk really think that that role has changed?

Right now that narrative is based on scientific materialism, -science without conscience.



The infinite fear porn industry that surrounds AGW does damage to rationality.

Here is how. Iam posted the algae bloom article on lake Erie, asserting it as being a AGW event. A rational person will reflect on at least two things as they read that article. First, the temperature in the great lakes is weather rather than climate driven, and second, it was a fucking cold winter here and the great lakes water was cold well into summer.

By accepting the propaganda the AGW believer is obliged to agree that great lakes water temps are climate effects rather than being weather events.

This is a clear impediment getting in the way of humans quest to become (someday) a rational animal.

Wow, Sounder, I was unaware that you didn't know that climate differences creates weather.

First, Lake Erie is the most shallow of the Great Lakes and more susceptible to warming than any other. Warm waters caused the blooms which thrive on excessive nutrients found in agricultural field runoff. Blooms do not grow in cold waters - period.

It was indeed a very cold winter. Most thankfully it killed off all the fleas that found my cat so attractive. But while we were freezing our tails off, our Aussie friends experienced their warmest summer on record.

Sounder, you and Ben placed foolish BS blaming everything on global warming and I thought that was my invitation to cause the warming under your collar. Pay attention!

Rational people... Please!

Rational people know how to discern the good guys from the slave drivers and the slave owners. Twits do not.

[Ben D]

Ben, with all due respect, for many years I've provided you with specific measurements or links to more information from dozens of sources. You give me Watt. The science is available to all who wish to find it.

Ok Iam, let's turn the page and start afresh...I will do my very best to post only scientifically credible information relating to the actual state of global climate. If you do the same, perhaps we will both see clearly if the evidence of humans being the predominant factor in global climate change actually stands up.

At the moment though, AGW evidence is failing, for the CO2 emissions have been growing for the last 17 years, and the temperature has not.....fact!. There are about 30 or more excuses from the AGW community to explain why the warming has stopped while CO2 increases...but none of them can be proven...they are all yet only possibilities to explain the non-compliance of Gaia's climate with IPCC's AGW GHG computer models. All the while the answer stands in their face.....the AGW computer models are flawed. Gaia natural climate change..1, UN IPCC AGW computer model prediction...0.

[Sounder]

Iam wrote...

Not that it matters at all in this discussion, but let's remember which one of our egos chose for our screen name "Lord."

This one is just too funny. Iam, you are aware that IamwhomIam is given as the name of God in the Bible, right?

I'm thinkin that the honorific 'Lord' is a tad less presumptive than is 'God'. But hey, that's cool, us weak egos need something to prop them up, twit.

Just kidding, I don't think you are a twit, and you calling me a twit on every other post won't make me change my mind.


Sounder » Sun Aug 10, 2014 5:20 am wrote:

Historically the role of the intellectual class is to develop and support the dominant narrative.

Do folk really think that that role has changed?

Right now that narrative is based on scientific materialism, -science without conscience.



The infinite fear porn industry that surrounds AGW does damage to rationality.

Here is how. Iam posted the algae bloom article on lake Erie, asserting it as being a AGW event. A rational person will reflect on at least two things as they read that article. First, the temperature in the great lakes is weather rather than climate driven, and second, it was a fucking cold winter here and the great lakes water was cold well into summer.

By accepting the propaganda the AGW believer is obliged to agree that great lakes water temps are climate effects rather than being weather events.

This is a clear impediment getting in the way of humans quest to become (someday) a rational animal.

Wow, Sounder, I was unaware that you didn't know that climate differences creates weather.

So, so, -formulaic. You always lead with some denigrating and incendiary statement. Sad.

First, Lake Erie is the most shallow of the Great Lakes and more susceptible to warming than any other. Warm waters caused the blooms which thrive on excessive nutrients found in agricultural field runoff. Blooms do not grow in cold waters - period.

Strange verbiage. My point stands that the referred to article is propaganda because the nuclear plant was not mentioned, while the ‘writer’ preferred to cite AGW as the cause, because that is more likely to bring a paycheck.

It was indeed a very cold winter. Most thankfully it killed off all the fleas that found my cat so attractive. But while we were freezing our tails off, our Aussie friends experienced their warmest summer on record.

Check the weather, it may have changed since then.

Sounder, you and Ben placed foolish BS blaming everything on global warming and I thought that was my invitation to cause the warming under your collar. Pay attention!

More word salad. No Iam you think too much of yourself.

Rational people... Please!

Rational people know how to discern the good guys from the slave drivers and the slave owners. Twits do not.

You said it.

I will say again. Globalists are pro-polluter, pro-imperialism, pro-patriarchy and pro-corporation, and have duped a fair part of the ‘left’ into supporting this anti-humane agenda.

[brainpanhandler]

So please tell me in your infinite wisdom what caused the end of the last glacial period in 9490±120 BC? What caused the Neolithic Subpluvial ca 7450 BC? What caused the end of the Neolithic Subpluvial ca 2950 BC? What caused the Roman Age Optimum in ca 200 BC? What caused the end of the Roman Age Optimum in ca AD 300? What caused the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period in ca AD 750? How is it that all of these global climatological events--not to mention all of the floods and famines and destroyed civilizations that have punctuated human civilization in the Holocene Period--were not caused by human industry, but the last minor blip is now believed to result from human activities because, well, humans are so important and their activities so incredibly powerful that they can cause what has hitherto only been caused by external forces on a cosmic scale.

Um... it's called the industrial revolution.

In 1800 there were 1 billion people on the planet. In 2012 there were 7 billion people on the planet. What do you suppose fueled that growth rate? Duh.

[Iamwhomiam]

smiths, thank you for the article. It is a shame the Aussie carbon tax was successfully scuttled.

I do not support carbon trading, which would be fraught with fraud, and allow exceedances of regulated emissions far beyond the limits set by their permit.

Factories now closed would pop open for business but remain idle; their profit now derived by selling the carbon credits the factory would release were it actually manufacturing anything to other large-level polluting industries.

However, the NYS REGGI, the regional greenhouse gas initiative that incorporated trading credits for sulfurdioxide was quite successful in reducing acid rain throughout the northeast, greatly reducing the negative impacts of acidifying mountain lakes and killing of forests.

However, for the same reasons I opposed this system. A tax upon the polluter would have been as effective, if not more so, and provides no room for fraud, as full, real-time monitoring of some regulated pollutants is now being required.

REGGI has forced many coal-fired plants to convert to natural gas from dirty coal.

[Iamwhomiam]

Ben, with all due respect, for many years I've provided you with specific measurements or links to more information from dozens of sources. You give me Watt. The science is available to all who wish to find it.

Ok Iam, let's turn the page and start afresh...I will do my very best to post only scientifically credible information relating to the actual state of global climate. If you do the same, perhaps we will both see clearly if the evidence of humans being the predominant factor in global climate change actually stands up.

At the moment though, AGW evidence is failing, for the CO2 emissions have been growing for the last 17 years, and the temperature has not.....fact!. There are about 30 or more excuses from the AGW community to explain why the warming has stopped while CO2 increases...but none of them can be proven...they are all yet only possibilities to explain the non-compliance of Gaia's climate with IPCC's AGW GHG computer models. All the while the answer stands in their face.....the AGW computer models are flawed. Gaia natural climate change..1, UN IPCC AGW computer model prediction...0.

Oh, Ben, you began so well... then I read your second sentence.

If you do the same, perhaps we will both see clearly if the evidence of humans being the predominant factor in global climate change actually stands up.

You keep trying to slip that in, Ben, about humans being the predominant factor in global climate change.

You are the only one to make this bogus claim. No climate scientist has come close to claiming humans are the predominant factor in global climate change. No one else but you has made such a claim here and no one has ever argued our climate is changing predominantly due to human activity.

What is being argued is that human generated pollutants are affecting the Earth's natural system, the system that creates climate and our weather through periodic cooling and warming, perhaps so much so as to permanently alter our natural cycle.

I have said this so many times, I tire waiting for a time when you will correct your thinking?

The excesses and exceedances of societal demands contributes to the warming we are now experiencing.

Human contributions to our ecosystem are accelerating the natural warming cycle prematurely.

And to correct one other thing it seems some cannot grasp: It's not just carbon dioxide. Or as the author of smith's piece put it, It's much more than "the science of an odourless and invisible gas."

Carbon Dioxide provides us a baseline, a beginning point similar in purpose to Celsius or Fahrenheit scales we use to measure temperature to compare with other pollutants only to determine their warming and radiative heat potential. There are thousands of other pollutants warming our climate that hold tens to thousands of times more heat than a single Carbon Dioxide molecule.

Many of these chemical pollutants are no more invisible than the dust you see in a sunbeam when the air is relatively still. And we introduce millions of tons of these into our environment each and every year that passes.

I asked you this earlier, Ben. Why avoid answering?

What's the downside of preparing for a calamity that never happens compared to never having prepared for a calamity that does happen?

To repeat myself,

We have gathered sufficient evidence from the sciences to have determined probable consequences from man's polluting contributions to our air, lands and waters will be devastating to our civilization. The warming potential of the pollutants absorbing heat from our Sun grows tremendously daily. Physics and fluid dynamics show runaway global warming due to anthropogenic cause not to be a myth, but reality.

When one looks at the photograph below, the narrow bright blue band illuminated by sunlight is our atmosphere. You can stuff only so much stuff that warms and holds heat after being exposed sunlight in a closed system before its full radiative force becomes irrevocable.

Every day that passes, thousands of acres worldwide are deforested, ever diminishing the chance the lungs of the earth will again respire adequately enough to function as they have for thousands of years, helping to keep our ecosystem in a natural balance.
Like a terrarium, without smokestacks.

I heard today that 35,000 elephants are being killed annually. More being killed than are being born. Humans can certainly exercise their will to their own permanent detriment.

I'll be back later to address your comments about the role of the IPCC. Yours too, Sounder.

[Ben D]

Ben, with all due respect, for many years I've provided you with specific measurements or links to more information from dozens of sources. You give me Watt. The science is available to all who wish to find it.

Ok Iam, let's turn the page and start afresh...I will do my very best to post only scientifically credible information relating to the actual state of global climate. If you do the same, perhaps we will both see clearly if the evidence of humans being the predominant factor in global climate change actually stands up.

At the moment though, AGW evidence is failing, for the CO2 emissions have been growing for the last 17 years, and the temperature has not.....fact!. There are about 30 or more excuses from the AGW community to explain why the warming has stopped while CO2 increases...but none of them can be proven...they are all yet only possibilities to explain the non-compliance of Gaia's climate with IPCC's AGW GHG computer models. All the while the answer stands in their face.....the AGW computer models are flawed. Gaia natural climate change..1, UN IPCC AGW computer model prediction...0.

Oh, Ben, you began so well... then I read your second sentence.

If you do the same, perhaps we will both see clearly if the evidence of humans being the predominant factor in global climate change actually stands up.

You keep trying to slip that in, Ben, about humans being the predominant factor in global climate change.

You are the only one to make this bogus claim. No climate scientist has come close to claiming humans are the predominant factor in global climate change. No one else but you has made such a claim here and no one has ever argued our climate is changing predominantly due to human activity.

What is being argued is that human generated pollutants are affecting the Earth's natural system, the system that creates climate and our weather through periodic cooling and warming, perhaps so much so as to permanently alter our natural cycle.

I have said this so many times, I tire waiting for a time when you will correct your thinking?

Well Iam, at last we discover the reason for your misunderstanding of my posts.....it is not I who is the only one claiming AGW scientists believe humans are the predominant factor in climate change....it is everyone who has ever followed the global warming science debate .....and it is you who are the only one I know of who is unaware of this fact!

IPCC climate report: humans 'dominant cause' of warming