How Bad Is Global Warming?

[justdrew]

If We Release a Small Fraction of Arctic Carbon, 'We're Fucked': Climatologist | Motherboard - This week, scientists made a disturbing discovery in the Arctic Ocean: They saw "vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor" (Republicans have already killed the planet)

Meet The Methane - Esquire

Fresh Focus on Siberian Permafrost as Hole Count Rises - NYTimes.com

[Iamwhomiam]

Boogie, don't be chagrined by Ben's remarks. The poor guy is always getting his bulrushes mixed up with his bullshit.

Like this: "Now Boogie....with due respect to your general humanity, your statement above means you do not meet my prerequisite requirements of the state of climate science understanding to engage in a meaningful discussion on the state of climate science."

You see, Boogie, it's this simple, those of us who understand the science involved, its scope and depth and the meaning of the data gathered feel Ben, by his own standards, is not qualified enough to engage in this discussion.

Ben feels this way, "I truly think that AGW is a scientific fraud..." perpetrated by tens of thousands of scientists whose minds are all controlled by an evil cabal, "the totally corrupt, foul, and greedy elite who run the show."

Now really, Boogie, do you think anything you could say could sway him from his belief?

Not a chance. Ben seems anxious for the Biblical end days to arrive to find his salvation and by the power of God magically altering our poisoned Earth into another Eden, he'll live happily ever after in Heaven on Earth, eternally.

Hey Ben, howya doin?

The really bizarre thing to me is that it is only those "totally corrupt, foul, and greedy elite who run the show" who benefit from opposing the changes necessary to abate the severity of the impacts that will save many millions of lives.

I say there is no choice to consider other than to choose life.

Like Einstein said when asked if he believed in God. What are the consequences of either choice? Which choice has the best possible personal outcome?

If God doesn't exist, it doesn't matter whether you believe he did or didn't. However, if you don't believe in God and God really does exist, you'll have hell to pay for your disbelief. If you do believe in God you'll go to Heaven.

Einstein was playing the odds in his favor and chose to believe in God.

I've studied much research on climate change and I believe what the science and data tell me, not the tripe that Fox's talking heads offer.

Ben would have you believe the melting glaciers and disappearing arctic ocean's ice are not true photographic representations of what is there, but rather are photographs of phony hologram projections. Obviously, the cabal have the minds of thousands scientists under their control and all work to move forward their evil agenda.

I'm still puzzled by how the cabal got the waters of all Earth's oceans to rise, but I'm sure Ben has a theory about this and will be glad to share it with you, maybe.

[Ben D]

So tell me Iamwhomiam, why is it that you accept unquestionably the claims of the UN and all the cooperating governments of the world that are are pushing AGW on their tax paying citizens, on the pretext that most of the paid climate scientists that report to the UN IPCC and respective participating world governments are telling it like it is and not telling it like they know their paymasters want to hear....unlike the corrupt legions of UN and national government sponsored lackeys of the security, economics, health, human rights, etc., .....yey and not only that....but you appear to show hostility to those who actually question the science behind the AGW claims.

...and I think the reason the general public, most of whom make their decision on intuition and not on science considerations, are not buying the AGW scenario is, apart from the lack of increase in warming this century, their distrust of the ruling elite...meaning the UN and world governments who they see are pushing it.

...and I'm just hangin in there Iam...and you?

[Iamwhomiam]

Hi Ben! I'm ok. As long as I don't go to the doctor, everything's just fine. Whenever I do go to see one, they tell me how awful I should be feeling.

Aside from that, reality, I'm sure you've noticed, seems more than a bit screwed up. To your point:

Wow! Just have to note that you're getting to be nearly as good as I am at writing run-on sentences. But to answer you I will need to break it up just a bit. This sentence's meaning changes a bit after the comma, so I'll the bit before it first, "So tell me Iamwhomiam, why is it that you accept unquestionably the claims of the UN and all the cooperating governments of the world that are are pushing AGW on their tax paying citizens,".

I don't. After all this time I'm surprised you've asked me this now. I don't even pay much attention to anything the UN does or reports, though I do read the IPCC reports and much of their referenced materials. I doubt I could name a third of the countries concerned about our warming climate and rising waters. One for sure, an island nation is looking to migrate elsewhere, as it will be first to disappear under the sea.

I work closely with research scientists at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center of the State University of New York, like solar research scientist RIchard Perez, whom I've referred to before in this thread. I also consult with physicians and health professionals, particularly those working in the environmental health field, epidemiologists, and also other distinguished scholars like RPI geomicrobiologist Yuri Gorby and current RPI Provost, Prabhat Hajela, who's worthy of a thread of his own.
(Rex, elfi, take note)

As is RPI Associate Professor Steve Breyman, whose articles you may have read in Counterpunch or elsewhere. I am still an officer of the Board of Directors charged with overseeing the operations of the corporation Steve had been Executive Director of.

I nearly forgot to mention Dr. David Carpenter. David's worked on environmental health issues I believe Sounder and Searcher would appreciate, researching health impacts of EM radiation and DU contamination David's the Director of the SUNY School of Public Health and Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment.

A bit off-topic and more appropriate for the AI thread is yet another friend, a theoretical mathematician whom I often counsel, who is to present a paper this December in Brazil on AI self-awareness.

No Ben, I don't hang out with idiots, nor do I take anyone's word at face value. Though some are very wealthy indeed, none are Show me the money! types. Well, maybe one is, but climate issues are not something we discuss. And he does indeed have MI affiliations.
Non-hierarchic system decomposition in structural optimization and neuro-mechanical interface stuff. Think piloting ufos, not wiggling prosthetics. 67 patents, last time I looked.

Anyway, I'm being way too wordy... to cut to the chase: You make far too much out of nothing, Ben. I've been an activist my entire adult life and have always questioned the "company line." Anyone can submit a paper to the IPCC for review; anyone at all, from anywhere. But if you want it published, it will need to pass peer review by specialists. Good luck with that if you're not credentialed.

I might have handed Mobil oil $2 million of their own money, but I never worked under contract for them and because you have and have touted their company line of drill, baby, drill and you utilize ridiculous sources, it seems to me you are the one helping those who would see us dead if only they could profit from it.

I see you and those of your school of thought who push the 'it's all a hoax so loyal lying scientists can get grants' as victims fooled by your prejudices and the messaging of corporations destroying the Earth's ecosystem and I feel no differently about them than I would invading shape-shifting lizard aliens intent on ending all life on Earth.

If that wasn't clear enough, more frankly, whether those denying global warming and its likely ramifications are doing so through ignorance or knowing, paid intent, I see all as extremely dangerous to my great-grandchildren's well-being and other living things.

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

Like with Einstein, there's only one right choice; the moral one. Choose life, not sure death.

But I still love ya!

[Lord Balto]

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.

[Ben D]

Hi Ben! I'm ok. As long as I don't go to the doctor, everything's just fine. Whenever I do go to see one, they tell me how awful I should be feeling.

Aside from that, reality, I'm sure you've noticed, seems more than a bit screwed up. To your point:

Wow! Just have to note that you're getting to be nearly as good as I am at writing run-on sentences. But to answer you I will need to break it up just a bit. This sentence's meaning changes a bit after the comma, so I'll the bit before it first, "So tell me Iamwhomiam, why is it that you accept unquestionably the claims of the UN and all the cooperating governments of the world that are are pushing AGW on their tax paying citizens,".

I don't. After all this time I'm surprised you've asked me this now. I don't even pay much attention to anything the UN does or reports, though I do read the IPCC reports and much of their referenced materials. I doubt I could name a third of the countries concerned about our warming climate and rising waters. One for sure, an island nation is looking to migrate elsewhere, as it will be first to disappear under the sea.

I work closely with research scientists at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center of the State University of New York, like solar research scientist RIchard Perez, whom I've referred to before in this thread. I also consult with physicians and health professionals, particularly those working in the environmental health field, epidemiologists, and also other distinguished scholars like RPI geomicrobiologist Yuri Gorby and current RPI Provost, Prabhat Hajela, who's worthy of a thread of his own.
(Rex, elfi, take note)

As is RPI Associate Professor Steve Breyman, whose articles you may have read in Counterpunch or elsewhere. I am still an officer of the Board of Directors charged with overseeing the operations of the corporation Steve had been Executive Director of.

I nearly forgot to mention Dr. David Carpenter. David's worked on environmental health issues I believe Sounder and Searcher would appreciate, researching health impacts of EM radiation and DU contamination David's the Director of the SUNY School of Public Health and Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment.

A bit off-topic and more appropriate for the AI thread is yet another friend, a theoretical mathematician whom I often counsel, who is to present a paper this December in Brazil on AI self-awareness.

No Ben, I don't hang out with idiots, nor do I take anyone's word at face value. Though some are very wealthy indeed, none are Show me the money! types. Well, maybe one is, but climate issues are not something we discuss. And he does indeed have MI affiliations.
Non-hierarchic system decomposition in structural optimization and neuro-mechanical interface stuff. Think piloting ufos, not wiggling prosthetics. 67 patents, last time I looked.

Anyway, I'm being way too wordy... to cut to the chase: You make far too much out of nothing, Ben. I've been an activist my entire adult life and have always questioned the "company line." Anyone can submit a paper to the IPCC for review; anyone at all, from anywhere. But if you want it published, it will need to pass peer review by specialists. Good luck with that if you're not credentialed.

I might have handed Mobil oil $2 million of their own money, but I never worked under contract for them and because you have and have touted their company line of drill, baby, drill and you utilize ridiculous sources, it seems to me you are the one helping those who would see us dead if only they could profit from it.

I see you and those of your school of thought who push the 'it's all a hoax so loyal lying scientists can get grants' as victims fooled by your prejudices and the messaging of corporations destroying the Earth's ecosystem and I feel no differently about them than I would invading shape-shifting lizard aliens intent on ending all life on Earth.

If that wasn't clear enough, more frankly, whether those denying global warming and its likely ramifications are doing so through ignorance or knowing, paid intent, I see all as extremely dangerous to my great-grandchildren's well-being and other living things.

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

Like with Einstein, there's only one right choice; the moral one. Choose life, not sure death.

But I still love ya!

Well that's nice Iam, thank you, and glad to hear you are relatively fine...

So now where do I start Iam....ok let's start with this...."Anyone can submit a paper to the IPCC for review; anyone at all, from anywhere. But if you want it published, it will need to pass peer review by specialists. Good luck with that if you're not credentialed."

So here is the UN IPCC mission and purpose of existence.....

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The IPCC produces reports that support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is the main international treaty on climate change.[5][6] The ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [i.e., human-induced] interference with the climate system".[5] IPCC reports cover "the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation."[6]

The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. The IPCC bases its assessment on the published literature, which includes peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed sources.[7]

So how, if the the ultimate objective of the IPCC is preventing AGW, does any skeptical climate scientist who submits a paper that refutes the anthropogenic cause of climate warming get it past peer review? They don't....read the Climategate Emails....and the conspiracy of AGW climate scientists to sideline the skeptics. And I suppose technically, any paper that did not address the anthropogenic cause of warming could be considered to lack relevance wrt the IPCC mission and dismissed solely on that basis.

...and you say..."I might have handed Mobil oil $2 million of their own money, but I never worked under contract for them and because you have and have touted their company line of drill, baby, drill and you utilize ridiculous sources, it seems to me you are the one helping those who would see us dead if only they could profit from it." C'mon....I worked 18 months under contract to establish a satellite communications system for them in Sumatra......just a roof over the head and all that stuff......could hardly qualify as a shill for big oil.....I've worked for worse...

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?

[BOOGIE66]

Ok fine Boogie66...but this works both ways.

What is that supposed to mean?

[Ben D]

Ok fine Boogie66...but this works both ways.

What is that supposed to mean?

Sorry to confuse....I considered your "climategate has been debunked" comment as a rude and condescending dismissal of my rather comprehensive post to you...it was not primarily about climategate!

[BOOGIE66]

Ok fine Boogie66...but this works both ways.

What is that supposed to mean?

Sorry to confuse....I considered your "climategate has been debunked" comment as a rude and condescending dismissal of my rather comprehensive post to you...it was not primarily about climategate!

I apologize I did not intend for my post to be rude or dismissive.

[Ben D]

Ok, no worries Boogie66....I likewise am sorry...

[Sounder]

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.

[Iamwhomiam]

Just stopped by to mention I'll respond to all later this evening or tomorrow. My niece's family from Oakland have arrived in Binghamton and I'm off to visit. 3 hr ride.

[smiths]

Rob Oakeshott: How big business hijacked parliament (Oakshott was a member of state and federal parliament for 17 years.)

The great failure of our time is that right when we had the chance to embed the original version of real democracy, we blinked, and have now stepped closer to a privatised model of democracy than ever before.

In policy, the example of this privatisation was climate change. In 2010, my thinking was simple and fairly brutal. I knew Peter Costello had tried and failed in 2001 to get an emissions trading scheme through cabinet. I knew former prime ministers John Howard and Kevin Rudd had both taken the advice of scientists and economists seriously and promoted an emissions trading scheme at the 2007 election. Famously, I knew the bipartisan deal was nearly done in 2009 between Rudd and then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull.

My view at the time was that bipartisanship on evidence and commonsense wasn’t really under threat, and that the 2010 election idea of Direct Action was just a cobbled together marketing tool intended by the Coalition to neutralise the electoral pain and stop the internal bleeding among its own ranks. I formed the view that the best thing to do was to help ram through an ETS, clean up the edges as we went, and then let the scientists and economists, as well as logic, commonsense and evidence, win the politics.

How wrong I was. I lived the birth of the false tax debate. I watched it grow, I watched it win. I watched an emissions trading scheme get reframed as a carbon tax and die as a consequence. I watched failure at the hand of a soldout democracy bent to the will of big business. I watched the public interest get pummelled by private interests.

It is my view that it is actually biodiversity loss that is Australia’s greatest environmental challenge, yet trying to initiate any sort of discussion or programs in this regard has politicians now running that same country mile.

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.

... Hats off to Packer, Forrest, Ramsay, Murdoch, Rinehart, et al. Their private charm offensive mixed with the public mischief of new corporate conflict theory – business-led street protest and the American campaign technique of “astroturfing” – was highly successful. The key to their success is the lax political donation laws at all levels in Australia, a system where decision-making is controlled completely by a select unelected few.

The mining tax ads that ran in high rotation were powerful influencers. It was a $20-odd million spend that kept a hundred times that in the pockets of a few. And it remains just one of many examples where Australians are screwing themselves, victims of a clever strategy that muddies the waters of policy reform.

http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/topi ... -iZ34CSx_0

[Luther Blissett]

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

[Rory]

Good read that, smiths