Anthropogenic climate change poll

[brainpanhandler]

So let's see what the consensus is on anthropogenic climate change, although the poll results are not likely to change anyone's opinions one little iota and that is very definitely not my intent.

[wintler2]

Good job BPH, nice range of possibly positions. Lets see.

[Penguin]

Yup, I also tend to like "anthropogenic change" a lot more than a simplistic "warming". I voted option 2 - in my studies of ecology of land-ecosystems, that is a fact, not a theory. Humans have changed the face of this planet for thousands of years, beginning on a large scale at the same time as our civilization and written records start. Our largest effects were long in the soil layer of the planet, but atmospheric changes have been caused from the times of the metal smelters of the Romans at the very least.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_h ... n29051107/
(not taking a stance on mr. Keys otherwise here)

"How Rome polluted the world: we tend to think of industrial pollution as a modern phenomenon but, as David Keys reveals, the ancient Romans were already contaminating the air, land and sea with toxic metals two millennia ago"

"Then, when the ore was smelted, large quantities of waste material escaped from the operation as very fine dust and were lifted into the atmosphere by the heat generated by the smelting furnaces. The techniques the Romans used to smelt the metal resulted in emissions of ultra-fine-dust pollution that were at least ten times higher than those seen in 19th-century Europe; the smelting pollution rate for copper was extraordinarily high--15 per cent--while that for lead was five per cent.

The main metal mined in Wadi Faynan was copper, and estimates suggest that up to 2,300 tonnes of the metal were released into the atmosphere each year. The major production centres for lead were in Spain, with smaller ones located in Greece, the Balkans and Britain. The combined emissions from these operations could have been as high as 4,000 tonnes per year.

Some of this material found its way into the middle troposphere--about six kilometres up--and then fell to Earth hundreds, or even thousands, of kilometres away. French researchers studying ice cores from Greenland estimate that something in the region of 800 tonnes of Roman copper and 400 tonnes of lead 'rained' down on Greenland in the form of polluted snow between 500 BC and 300 AD."

(and that doesn't say that aliens couldn't have genetically engineered humans and have had Atlantises and Lemurias here too...)

Eventually, given enough time, plate tectonics will tidy up whats left of ours, as well...

[operator kos]

Absolutely. While I don't feel like posting exactly where I work on the Internet, I will say that I work for one of the leading environmental non-profits in the U.S. We get every single climate change report that comes out. We get briefed by experts in the field at least once a week. While you don't have to believe my anonymous appeal to authority, I will say that those who deny AGW are simply ignorant of the absolutely vast body of scientific research which concludes that the climate is changing and that industrial activity plays a major role. It has also been proven that companies like Shell and Chevron paid to have pseudoscientific attacks on AGW published and that the Bush administration deliberately suppressed the findings of its own EPA team which supported AGW.

Seriously, who the frig sides with Bush and oil companies over thousands of top scientists from around the world?[/b]

[Iamwhomiam]

Thanks for posting this, BPH. Had a good laugh over the last option listed.

I agree completely with the sentiments voiced by OK.

I wish one of the 'deniers' would answer this one question: Supposing that atmospheric warming and its resultant change in climate is a natural occurrence, something that is beyond our control, shouldn't we therefore control that which we can, and limit our anthropogenic contribution to known climate warming gases?

[barracuda]

I'm not ashamed to admit that I prefer incandesent light over fluorescent. It just agrees with my skin tones. And if the world has to perish in a rain of burning hailstones the size of refrigerators so that I can look good, so be it.

Otherwise, yeah, I'm agnostic about the particulars, as I don't feel qualified to assess the hard science; but I'm intractable about the general proposition that pollution is perhaps the most destructive force in plain sight in the world today, and benefits no one but those for whom the welfare of the individual is an impediment to easy profit.

[Sweejak]

You'll be surprised that I voted yes, because I can see and feel the effects of a heat island every time I drive into a town. Deforestation, and who knows how many acres of land turned into farming fields must have effects, not to mention the effects of pollution, which is not really the same thing as climate change, is it?

But about this AGW, I don't think that it is mainly human caused and now I'm not sure it's even happening. Globally temps are dropping, and even the AGW people think so because they are trying to hide it from their own supporters. I don't know what is going on in the Arctic, my family in Alaska tells me there are some pretty dramatic changes.

I'm really surprised at RI though, I feel like I'm on a Bush board in 2003. Isn't anyone pissed about being lied to? It's the same stuff, the "eminent scientists", "the highly educated experts", the "well-known", the "consensus", the sneering at bloggers ... just like those who thought Colin Powell's UN speech was the final, settled evidence. Is the suppression of other scientists ok now because they are on your side?

I think it must be one of the only times I've heard support come down for what the MSM is so earnestly pushing, for what the heads of government are doing or going to do in Copenhagen. Following Occidental Al Gore, being silent when the green leaders admit they are exaggerating and "emotionalizing".

Anyway, it's a good poll, but I've fallen thru the cracks.

[Hugo Farnsworth]

Voted 2. Agreed with Penguin spot on.

Concentrating our efforts solely on reducing CO2 is a disaster in the making. It simply does not address the scale of the problem. CO2 sequestration is best done by human-manipulated natural processes. See how Magnus Larrson (link) proposes to use bacillus pasteurii to cement sand into sandstone, which produces calcite, which sequesters CO2, and slows the desertification of the Sahel!

The carbon tax cap and trade thing is IMHO a blatant bogus ripoff. It effectively hamstrings any effort to pour energy into producing alternate energy solutions. Peak Oil and Peak Net Energy will solve the CO2 problem whether we like it or not. Alleviation is not the answer, prioritization is.

What I would like to propose is a Frivolity Tax. Wanna make some cheap plastic geegaw? Tax. Game console? Tax. NFL football? Tax. NASCAR? Tax. Solar panels? Incentive! You can see how this might work. Of course, deciding what is frivolous is going to be highly contentious and political, but I think it's an easier sell than taxing carbon. Determining carbon footprint is difficult at best, but taxing a product is easy--the system is already in place.

[lightningBugout]

I think it must be one of the only times I've heard support come down for what the MSM is so earnestly pushing, for what the heads of government are doing or going to do in Copenhagen.

But they're doing so as the result of a decades long battle to persuade them, waged by scientists, academics, public intellectuals and activists.

[Sweejak]

I think it must be one of the only times I've heard support come down for what the MSM is so earnestly pushing, for what the heads of government are doing or going to do in Copenhagen.

But they're doing so as the result of a decades long battle to persuade them, waged by scientists, academics, public intellectuals and activists.

Where is the outrage over having science polluted here? You don't have to agree with my take, but seriously, there is hardly a peep about that.

Are you sure the MSM has been turned, maybe they remember the Ice Age scare. Where is Hugh and his media analysis? I haven't gone back and studied how the MSM has handled it over time. In any case they have been doing their usual role, suppressing alternative evidence although this is getting hard to ignore. Now you've even got IPCC guys calling for ousting Mann et al and that call comes from both sides of the debate.

I haven't read it yet, pdf.
CLIMATE SCIENCE CORRUPTED

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/image ... rupted.pdf

[Jeff]

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/

SPPI doesn't reveal it's funding, but it's run by Robert Ferguson, who was the initial Executive Director of the largely Exxon-funded "Center for Science and Public Policy" (CSSP), and remained so until a couple of years ago. CSSP, FWIW, is an arm of the "Frontiers of Freedom Institute," founded by a former Republican senator and devoted to promoting "conservative public policy based on the principles of individual freedom, peace through strength, limited government, free enterprise, and traditional American values."

In case that matters.

[Sweejak]

Yeah it matters, though I've got nothing against freedom, peace, free enterprise, the values of the Constitution whatever those might mean.

I know, if they are right they have to be wrong, always and forever. So knowing that it's obviously not worth fact checking. But not revealing your funding is a big no no in my book, so thanks.

[Occult Means Hidden]

Not revealing your funding should be illegal. They can be a public organization but have private books? Fuck that.

If the poll would have let me vote, I woulda voted option 2.

Deniers' thinking summed up:

It's good to know we can release millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere and it has no effects on the planet whatsoever. Not even in the slightest. Because Earth is badass like that. Nobody can fuck with Earth. Especially not humans.

[American Dream]

I'll point out that freedom means something very different to an ordinary person who may hold some traditional values but just wants to be left alone than it does to somebody in the financial/political elite. So which "right" are we talking about?

As to the argument against the reality of anthropogenic warming of the Earth, I consider that to be basically corporate propaganda.

Now what we should actually do about it all- that's another question. Big businesses have their own agenda, one which I generally don't follow...

[Sweejak]

I'll point out that freedom means something very different to an ordinary person who may hold some traditional values but just wants to be left alone than it does to somebody in the financial/political elite. So which "right" are we talking about?

I don't know without seeing who funds them. What Left are we talking about, Soros, Gore, Strong, MSM, UN? I'll tell one thing it is a weird feeling to have to watch FOX youtubes and visit sites I refused to go to in the W era, but I guess it's not surprising because we are now in the O era and in a polarized Right/Left world you'll find some good opposition over there even if it is hypocritical given their recent past and even if it's strictly party based.

Who is calling for making the hiding of data illegal these days? Last I saw was on WattsUpWithThat, a purportedly "Right wing" site.