The 'New' Global Warming Verdict?

[fences_like_a_lemur]

Has anyone else heard about the new report about Global Warming from Paris?

PARIS -- The world's leading climate scientists released a report Friday that finds global warming is "very likely" caused by humans and that temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise for centuries no matter what we do.

A report, released in Paris, reflects the work of hundreds of scientists and government representatives from 113 countries, including the United States.

A top U.S. government scientist at the conference said "there can be no question" that humans are responsible for the increase in greenhouse gases.
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The report said no matter how much the world slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and rising sea levels will continue for centuries.

The report predicts temperature rises of between 2 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. Its best estimate is somewhere between 3 and 7 degrees.

On sea levels, the report predicts rises of as much as 23 inches by the end of the century.

The phrase "very likely" translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man.

A top American climate scientist, Jerry Mahlman, who originated the percentage system, said what this means in layman's language is "we have this nailed."

It marked an escalation from the panel's last report in 2001. That report said warming was "likely" caused by human activity.

So what do you think? Is it ALL our fault or was it naturally occurring and we just helped to make it a lot worse, a lot quicker?

[jeff]

I've heard a little about the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Apparently, a number of governments had delegations to try to mold the language to suit their national interests. Eg: perhaps China "helped" to have the language be "90%" (pretty darn likely odds) instead of "99%" (for all practical purposes, as close to certainty as you're going to get) because of their heavy use of fossil fuels.

And, to add fuel to the (carbon-emitting) fire, ExxonMobil (ticker symbol XOM, in case you wanted to look them up; they had record profits) have been funding the American Enterprise Institute group to give a nice bribe ($10K) to any scientist willing to disagree in print with the report. Not prove it wrong, mind you, or even offer evidence to the contrary - merely express an opinion against it

However, what has transpired is that their is now very clear strong scientific consensus that the increased warming from the 1950s has been caused by human activity, specifically, burning of fossil fuels. Even scientists who were global-warming doubters a few years ago are now publishing reports that make estimates in the lower range of human-caused increased temperatures.

[Interrupter]

Yes I read some of it. I have to agree, of course humans started the whole thing. I would have to vote for population control. China already tried it though, under Mao with the One Child per household. I have to agree with him on that. It's a shame he was a despot, it's equally a shame that most people are too shelfish to see the reason behind it. More people - more housing - more housing - less trees - less trees - less oxygen - less oxygen - more use of energy - more digging - and so forth until we see the results: a giant peice of ice that broke off the coastline in the Arctic Circle. I was also stunned to see photographs of the Coastline of the Philllipines and Thailand strewn with garbage for miles and miles. They don't crunch it up? Why not?

Also, did anyone see the huge comet in the Southern Hemisphere? I only saw photos of it. The last big comet was 1995-1997 Hale Bop. This one was very spectacular - Some countries believe that Comets are harbringers of bad news for the century. I wish I didn't like Comets so much!! Any other phenomena out there?

[TrainingDummy]

So is this saying that we can just use a bunch of fossil fuels now because it's too late to matter?

[Slim]

It's good to consider both sides.....

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/s...6fef8763c6&k=0

[introspective]

Someone just told me that she thought I should work with a research group. There's no adequate answer to give her. What happens to most people is that after the get the big picture, they then realize that working with a research groups is worthless. They tend to put every peice of information into a computer bit - and then then micro-analyze it to the point where nothing gets done except to continuously study the problems. In the meanwhile, it seems no-one has figured out that the various earthquakes pushes water all over the place and now Indonesia is under six feet of water with 145,000 people homeless. Those people lived in nice places. Global warming is definetly part of the problem. We can't do very much about earth movements, except become more aware of them and follow the ocean currents so that we can predict where flooding may occur. Then if we can muster up the manpower - by hiring back all the engineers we can and have them develop levee systems that work, we'll be in business. In the meanwhile, I'm sitting here watching a bunch of selfish greedy old women try to plan their next 'trip' to Indonesia and one woman I know wants to go to Thailand now, [of course - since all the prices are down] and have a face lift. Well good for her - hope her eyes stretch.

[Bayou Bum]

This is why I have purchased large amounts of land in Greenland. Soon, I will own tropical beach front property

If the ocean levels are really going to rise 2', why are we bothering to rebuild New Orleans?

[jeff]

They'll have to reissue "Blue Bayou" as "Green Bayou"

"I'm going back some day, come what may, to green bayou....."

[Inquartata]

Yes, the part of this story that worries me is the last phrase in the line "A report, released in Paris, reflects the work of hundreds of scientists and government representatives".

The theory has been co-opted by governments, and there are probably as many selfish interests vested in the pursuit of policies aimed at fighting warming as there are in, say, the fossil fuel, industry. I don't think objectivity is possible any longer. People on both sides are seeing the issue through a veil of personal belief and desire.

I also hate seeing unqualified phrases such as "there can be no question" from scientists, of all people. This quite aside from the fact that since there ARE still people with questions, however few, questions certainly still exist and therefore must be able to exist....

[fences_like_a_lemur]

I was reading an article in Scientific American awhile back called Impact From The Deep which was talking about how the Earth seems to go through it's own cycles of warming. There seemed to be quite a bit of information in the article that made me think that what is happening right now might just be the Earth hitting one of these 'trends' and we just happen to be here helping it to screw up the atmosphere and the oceans.

[introspective]

Yes Lemur, I've read the same sort of articles in the past, I thinkthey're right, about the cycles of life that the earth goes through - build ups and declines. We did have 4 Asteroids that were heading towards us about 7 years ago and we hit one of them with a rocket. Government Officials - are merely people who have jobs working for large departments. The only problem that they have is that they are are paid more than the average worker in the same job description. If they had the same basics as everyone else, they would have to live like everyone else and perhaps then we would see a difference in the world. A guy or gal earning $80thousand a year doing work that would normally be paid $40thousand a year in the private sector will protect his job more. That's the cycle that once changed, will affect everything else. It would put more people on the same level and then you'd see more people working harder to protect the middle-class things that need to be protected. They protect themselves more, because they have more things to protect. Speaking of Greenland - no joke - I almost took a job there

[Rabid Monk]

I don't buy the global warming catastrophies that propagate from media-happy outlets.
They all cite charts of a global temperature increase occuring over the last 150 years. They use the records beginning in the 1850's, since that's when decent record-keeping began.
And they show graphs showing a steep slope. But look closely at the numbers. Over the last hundred years, the global temperature rise the show in those steep, scary graphs is about 0.5*C. It's amazing what a little tweaking on that vertical scale can do.
And further, the 1850's marked the end of the "Little Ice Age", and a period of general warming (hmm... an ice age ends and things get warm? There's a shocker).
And how do we determine what is a decent range to show a trend over? The Earth's climate is very much a dynamic entity, not a static one. It is no more correct to hold up 100 years of history as proof than it is too use two adjacent years. Why? Neither presents a background of the so-called "normal" temperatures. If you want to prove that thigs are getting warmer, don't show a tiny increase over 100 years as evidence. Show at least 500 years beforehand to establish a baseline to compare against. It's well known the Earth's climate changes. This is why they don't establish a baseline. None exists! At least, nothing stable enough to show what they want.

And that's what it all boils down to. Showing what they want. And the media reporting it in a manner that will sell. A lot of people who buy into this don't seem to factor in the little detail that media outlets use sensationalism. And all the various charities using this info support it.
After all, saying things are perfectly fine doesn't get funding, does it?

So: Has human activity had an effect on global warming? Possible, but unproven on a macroscopic level. If you take a microscopic viewpint, then you will see various man-made microclimates. But they are unrelated to the issue of global warming.
Until someone can show me the stable baseline they use as a foundation for their arguments, I will remain highly skeptical of what amounts to little more than propaganda for funding increases.

[mrbiggs]

The media....and all the scientists. They're in on it too...

[introspective]

An Inconvenient Truth - with Al Gore. Yes it's another media sound bite, but it speaks volumes. We may not like the fact that people sort of jumped onto the band wagon of late, because by the time those things go to press it's almost too late. However, as the cliche thread might say : Better Late than Never.
In 1998, it seemed like we were going back to the Dinasour Age. In truth, I felt that decade was a Jurrasic Park like experience. Every month ushered in a new catastophe, a storm, an earthquake, a volcanoe or flood. It was never ending. We're not out of the woods yet. We still have a long way to go. I don't discount anything about global warming. It may sound alarmist on the part of scientists, but in truth, they were telling us like it was. There are so many causes that we could isolate, but taken together its what we call: Progress.

Can we live without microwaves, television, instant soup, and other pre-fab things. I hate to place blame on anyone, but food for example is a classic example of how we've become more reliant upon instant gratification. We used to bake cookies and cakes from scratch - and we ate less. The headlines across America all say the same thing: "Americans are Obese".

Some of the developing nations put the blame on McDonalds. It wasn't just McDonalds, it merely symbolized the way the world has become more and more ''instant'". Even places like Japan don't make homemade miso anymore, or homemade anything anymore most of their stuff is prepackaged. Rice is boiled in a rice cooker. Theres' a million things we could do without, but it would keep millions of women at home rather than the workplace, which brings in the 2nd income to pay for the mortgage. But in the long run, since I've met a zillion females without homes after they loose their husbands, the answer very may well to go back to the old-fashioned way of keeping home and hearth.

By the way, clarified butter is made by cooking butter over a low heat for a long period of time and removing the milk solids from the mixture. Hence = clarified butter. Indian cooking has, thankfully remained too difficult to make for the ordinary chef.

[introspective]

Post script: actually in talking with some others, it's something we can't change in people. We may just have to let some things go for now. Until later. For one thing there's too much confusion about global warming - people get confused that the weather is actually colder. Then we seem to run into problems with GM as far as their electric car prototype goes. So. it just like for now, we may have to pass on a lot of things.

[PeterGustafsson]

I don't buy the global warming catastrophies that propagate from media-happy outlets.
They all cite charts of a global temperature increase occuring over the last 150 years. They use the records beginning in the 1850's, since that's when decent record-keeping began.

Umm...No.
I do not know what definition you have of decent record-keeping is, but Stockholm has an unbroken series of observations for 250 years. See for yourself:
http://www.smhi.se/sgn0102/n0205/art.../s19_jul06.pdf

Also, glacier ice conserves data on the temperature when a yearly layer of snow fell, and several thousands of year´s worth of data is stored in it.

Until someone can show me the stable baseline they use as a foundation for their arguments, I will remain highly skeptical of what amounts to little more than propaganda for funding increases.

The glacier data mentioned above, and some other data sources, are used to calculate average yearly temperatures for times well before meterological obervations began. That is the base for the "hockey stick curve", google it or see the link below:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3569604.stm


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Inquartata]

Umm...No.
I do not know what definition you have of decent record-keeping is, but Stockholm has an unbroken series of observations for 250 years. See for yourself:
http://www.smhi.se/sgn0102/n0205/art.../s19_jul06.pdf

Also, glacier ice conserves data on the temperature when a yearly layer of snow fell, and several thousands of year´s worth of data is stored in it.

Both might tell us about local temperatures, but not about global ones. And isn't that what we're debating? Global temperature change?

[introspective]

I don't know if-n I would call it a 'debate' per se. We're reallly talking about all the issues surrounding global warming. It's just such a hugh issue, tackling it seems impossible. There may be one easy solution to the whole mess and that's draw up a flow chart of all the areas that need to be worked on -
I. Contributors to Global Warming - list them in order of severity
then under that write out small incremental steps that could be taken to reduce the effects of each area, and keep going down the flow chart.
You might find that some areas are easier to take care of than others. [thow a little approximate time curve in it]

BUt for starters: I'd organize a 'Word-Wide Plastic Cleanup" and bag everything in sight that comes from a plastic container and ship the whole entire mess to mars. The rest of the refuse I would incinerate. That would clean up alot.

[Teme]

Both might tell us about local temperatures, but not about global ones. And isn't that what we're debating? Global temperature change?

But there are glaciers all over the globe. While not perhaps strecthing back to hundreds of thousands of years, tens of thousands anyway.
Then there are the sediments, the oxidation of soil, all that scientific stuff.

They even know about Cryogenian Period when the whole globe was covered in ice. That's Global, and they didn't get that from Greenland glaciers. When it comes to athmospheric issues, everything effects everything and changes leave marks everywhere.

[introspective]

Also, and this may seem unrelated, but last night I was watching a program on television about the different structures built in the US and they were showing us the huge damn built in 1979 - I actually forgot which one. But at any rate, I realized later on that it was a huge huge damn, holding back zillions of gallons of cubic water pressure from its' natural flow; but more important the water that is 'pooled' at the top of the damn is at a much higher elevation than it would normally be; and it's pretty calm water which, when it evaporates into the atmosphere creates more cloud formation and so forth - maybe one of the reasons the midwest is getting so much snow? I see it as a possibility.