First the energy that fuels all those societal benefits that Christy talked about can be obtained by other means - you donr have to burn fossil fuels to do those things.
The plant argument is bogus too. Plants can do all the things they need CO2 at between 180-270 ppm. You can have too much of a good thing. Having a glass of wine now nad then is benificial but too much alcohol is a road to disaster - same for CO2.
@drkstrong That's not a very good analogy. Plants NEED CO2 to live, whereas humans can do without wine and do quite alright. Moreover, alcohol is a poison and CO2 is an integral part of the biosphere. Of course, too much CO2 is a bad thing. But then, too much of anything is not good... by definition. A better analogy might have been Humans and water but that's not as scary i suppose.
@drkstrong then perhaps we should call water hydrogen pollution. Let's be honest: it's a factually incorrect term. CO is a pollutant. CO2 is not. That's a fact.
Also what constitutes a "problem" level of CO2 is wide open for debate. It requires a fair bit of subjective judgement when you want to say a particular level of CO2 is undesireable.
@HarrynJessie We call water a danger when it floods.
On what level is undesirable:
1) When there is so much more of it that it starts to warm the planet
2) When its levels are 44% higher than any time in the last several million years, during which times plants and animals (including us) have developed with the level much lower
3) When it is chnaging so rapidly the ecosystems can no longer evolve fast enough to adapt
1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas. any amount has a warming effect. so, no, this is not evidence of a problem.
2) I guess this could well be a problem were it occuring.
3) see 2)
4) I'm not a scientist but I do know that oceans are an incredibly complex system and I would hazard a guess that increasing the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere from 0.33% to 0.34% in the space of 100 years would not have a huge effect on ocean acidity, given other factors at play.
4) You may not be a scientist but I am. However you ar eright the Oceans are a complex system. CO2 has increased from 0.027% to 0.039% (a 44% increase). This might seem small but as CO2 is the largest primary GHG (H2O is a secondary GHG i.e. it cannot increase without temperature increasing first so it magnifies the effects of chnages in the other GHGs) this is very significant
@drkstrong There are too many issues with such figures to go through in a forum like this. Perhaps you could direct me to a paper which analyses this change in CO2 levels. I'll make this point however: proponents have to demonstrate that the GW we have seen over the last 100 or so years is faster and more dangerous than, at least, at any time during human existence. They must then prove that human activity is responsible for a certain proportion of that warming. ...
@HarrynJessie UN IPCC 2007 working group 1 report is a good starting point, ther has been a more recent review (more technical): The IPCC Expert Meeting on Detection and Attribution Related to Anthropogenic Climate Change (on the same web site). The Royal Society also put out an easier guide to understanding the scientific issues: Climate change: A Summary of the Science
@drkstrong ... they must then ascertain how much of our input can be classified as unnatural - which, it seems to me, requires a fair bit of subjective, non-scientific, judgement - since we are part of the ecosystem too; all human GHG emissions can't therefore be classified as unnatural and therefore undesireable. After that, we need projections to give us an idea as to what will happen over the coming centuries so we can conduct a risk management exercise.
@drkstrong of course, these are only a few of the hurdles. like i said, a forum like this is not really good for this type of discussion so I would be much appreciative if you could direct me to a paper, or preferably a book, that deals with these issues.
@drkstrong in regard to "we call water a danger when it floods" - but we don't call it a pollutant. we may also call it relatively good news following a 10-year drought.
@drkstrong when we have too many Kangaroos running around we don't call them evil monsters that must be culled post-haste. We say there are a few too many and get on with the job. The only reason to use a term like "carbon pollution" is to confuse lay people into thinking the problem is much worse than it really is. Is it too much to ask those who are more knowledgeable to simply stick to the facts?
@HarrynJessie Why are there too many roos? Who defines too many? Actually the pollutant here are the sheep which are not native and of course the non abo population. I would have thought after the increase in droughts, fires, and horrific storms that you folks would have been getting t emessage about AGW. Bu there are always some who put their own personal comfort above the common good.
@drkstrong That's a good question... but not the point at all. The point is that a word like "pollution" is used deliberately to mislead those of us who are not well-versed in chemistry and physics. It makes it look like the AGW argument - notwithstanding the reality of the position - it makes the argument look desperate and less solid than its supporters would have us believe.
@drkstrong I'm sorry but there is just no evidence to support a statement such as this: "after the increase in droughts, fires, and horrific storms that you folks would have been getting t emessage about AGW". You say you're a scientist, so i'm very surprised by this statement. If you believe such a statement, you have to show that our recent floods, for example, are somehow different from those in 1974, 1951 etc. Ditto for droughts, bushfires and cyclones.
@HarrynJessie I actually lived in Australia for extended periods in 1976, 1978, and 1979 (Woomera and Adelaide - loved it) while launching rockets. Yes, we had bush fires, droughts & cyclones but I understand from the reports from friends that the recent ones have been more frequent and more extensive. AGW does not predict anything other than a frequency increase & when it happens they will be worse
In our area we now have long dry periods punctated by deluges, nothing like is was in the 80's
@drkstrong well, I can tell you that the recent drought, which lasted for roughly 10 years, was, from all reports, no worse than those in the 1930s or the federation drought. Same with the bushfires of 1939 compared with those of Black Saturday a couple of years ago or the Ash Wednesday fires of '83. The main difference is that there are heaps more people living in these fire-prone regions, hence there is a far greater human cost. Ditto with the recent Queensland floods.
@OtagoMark What "things" arent increasing in intensity and frequency. It you are referring to frequency of setting hi-temperature records that is increasing, while the lo-temperature records are decreasing. Exrtreme weather events - same. Proportion of strong huricanes (measured by energy disspated) and so on.
@drkstrong the temperature records from this last decade have been relatively stable. If they were increasing in intensity as you so say, then it would reflect on data - but it does not. The fluctuations have been stable since the 1990s with modest increases up until the 2000's.
@Igneous01 The last decade was the warmest on record, the 90's the 2nd, the 80's the 3rd and the 70's the 4th. 2010 is already the warmest year on record. 2011 will not make it into the top 10 years (but will be close) as we have had a sustained La Nina for the bulk of the year.
if co2 is a pollutant we'd all die from a passionate kiss
TruthWithinRange 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
I present The Quick Glance Guide to Global Warming Part A:
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NikFromNYC 9 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
I present The Quick Glance Guide to Global Warming Part B:
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NikFromNYC 9 months ago
Fanatics talk about CO2 as if they are releasing sarin gas? Orweallian propaganda? Whatever =)
apprenticejedi 10 months ago
First the energy that fuels all those societal benefits that Christy talked about can be obtained by other means - you donr have to burn fossil fuels to do those things.
The plant argument is bogus too. Plants can do all the things they need CO2 at between 180-270 ppm. You can have too much of a good thing. Having a glass of wine now nad then is benificial but too much alcohol is a road to disaster - same for CO2.
drkstrong 1 year ago
@drkstrong That's not a very good analogy. Plants NEED CO2 to live, whereas humans can do without wine and do quite alright. Moreover, alcohol is a poison and CO2 is an integral part of the biosphere. Of course, too much CO2 is a bad thing. But then, too much of anything is not good... by definition. A better analogy might have been Humans and water but that's not as scary i suppose.
HarrynJessie 1 year ago
@HarrynJessie CO2 above a certain concentration is poisonous as well. Drowning is pretty scary too.
Nobody is advocating getting rid of CO2 that would be ludicrous (and just about impossible) but just that we stop adding to the problem.
drkstrong 1 year ago
@drkstrong then perhaps we should call water hydrogen pollution. Let's be honest: it's a factually incorrect term. CO is a pollutant. CO2 is not. That's a fact.
Also what constitutes a "problem" level of CO2 is wide open for debate. It requires a fair bit of subjective judgement when you want to say a particular level of CO2 is undesireable.
HarrynJessie 1 year ago
@HarrynJessie We call water a danger when it floods.
On what level is undesirable:
1) When there is so much more of it that it starts to warm the planet
2) When its levels are 44% higher than any time in the last several million years, during which times plants and animals (including us) have developed with the level much lower
3) When it is chnaging so rapidly the ecosystems can no longer evolve fast enough to adapt
4) When it starts to make the ocean more acidic.
That good enough?
drkstrong 1 year ago
@drkstrong well let's see...
1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas. any amount has a warming effect. so, no, this is not evidence of a problem.
2) I guess this could well be a problem were it occuring.
3) see 2)
4) I'm not a scientist but I do know that oceans are an incredibly complex system and I would hazard a guess that increasing the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere from 0.33% to 0.34% in the space of 100 years would not have a huge effect on ocean acidity, given other factors at play.
HarrynJessie 1 year ago
@HarrynJessie
1) Agreed
2) & 3) It is occuring (measured)
4) You may not be a scientist but I am. However you ar eright the Oceans are a complex system. CO2 has increased from 0.027% to 0.039% (a 44% increase). This might seem small but as CO2 is the largest primary GHG (H2O is a secondary GHG i.e. it cannot increase without temperature increasing first so it magnifies the effects of chnages in the other GHGs) this is very significant
drkstrong 1 year ago
@drkstrong There are too many issues with such figures to go through in a forum like this. Perhaps you could direct me to a paper which analyses this change in CO2 levels. I'll make this point however: proponents have to demonstrate that the GW we have seen over the last 100 or so years is faster and more dangerous than, at least, at any time during human existence. They must then prove that human activity is responsible for a certain proportion of that warming. ...
HarrynJessie 1 year ago
@HarrynJessie UN IPCC 2007 working group 1 report is a good starting point, ther has been a more recent review (more technical): The IPCC Expert Meeting on Detection and Attribution Related to Anthropogenic Climate Change (on the same web site). The Royal Society also put out an easier guide to understanding the scientific issues: Climate change: A Summary of the Science
drkstrong 1 year ago
@drkstrong ... they must then ascertain how much of our input can be classified as unnatural - which, it seems to me, requires a fair bit of subjective, non-scientific, judgement - since we are part of the ecosystem too; all human GHG emissions can't therefore be classified as unnatural and therefore undesireable. After that, we need projections to give us an idea as to what will happen over the coming centuries so we can conduct a risk management exercise.
HarrynJessie 1 year ago
@HarrynJessie That is a snake oil argument. See watch?v=Qb8Omi2ozA4 for the answers to those points
drkstrong 1 year ago
@drkstrong of course, these are only a few of the hurdles. like i said, a forum like this is not really good for this type of discussion so I would be much appreciative if you could direct me to a paper, or preferably a book, that deals with these issues.
HarrynJessie 1 year ago
@drkstrong in regard to "we call water a danger when it floods" - but we don't call it a pollutant. we may also call it relatively good news following a 10-year drought.
HarrynJessie 1 year ago
@HarrynJessie Now you are playing sematics - what does it matter what it is called it is causing a problem and we gotta fix it
drkstrong 1 year ago
@drkstrong when we have too many Kangaroos running around we don't call them evil monsters that must be culled post-haste. We say there are a few too many and get on with the job. The only reason to use a term like "carbon pollution" is to confuse lay people into thinking the problem is much worse than it really is. Is it too much to ask those who are more knowledgeable to simply stick to the facts?
HarrynJessie 1 year ago
@HarrynJessie Why are there too many roos? Who defines too many? Actually the pollutant here are the sheep which are not native and of course the non abo population. I would have thought after the increase in droughts, fires, and horrific storms that you folks would have been getting t emessage about AGW. Bu there are always some who put their own personal comfort above the common good.
drkstrong 1 year ago
@drkstrong That's a good question... but not the point at all. The point is that a word like "pollution" is used deliberately to mislead those of us who are not well-versed in chemistry and physics. It makes it look like the AGW argument - notwithstanding the reality of the position - it makes the argument look desperate and less solid than its supporters would have us believe.
HarrynJessie 11 months ago
@drkstrong I'm sorry but there is just no evidence to support a statement such as this: "after the increase in droughts, fires, and horrific storms that you folks would have been getting t emessage about AGW". You say you're a scientist, so i'm very surprised by this statement. If you believe such a statement, you have to show that our recent floods, for example, are somehow different from those in 1974, 1951 etc. Ditto for droughts, bushfires and cyclones.
HarrynJessie 11 months ago
@HarrynJessie I actually lived in Australia for extended periods in 1976, 1978, and 1979 (Woomera and Adelaide - loved it) while launching rockets. Yes, we had bush fires, droughts & cyclones but I understand from the reports from friends that the recent ones have been more frequent and more extensive. AGW does not predict anything other than a frequency increase & when it happens they will be worse
In our area we now have long dry periods punctated by deluges, nothing like is was in the 80's
drkstrong 11 months ago
Comment removed
HarrynJessie 11 months ago
@drkstrong well, I can tell you that the recent drought, which lasted for roughly 10 years, was, from all reports, no worse than those in the 1930s or the federation drought. Same with the bushfires of 1939 compared with those of Black Saturday a couple of years ago or the Ash Wednesday fires of '83. The main difference is that there are heaps more people living in these fire-prone regions, hence there is a far greater human cost. Ditto with the recent Queensland floods.
HarrynJessie 11 months ago
@drkstrong Except things arent increasing in intensity or frequency...humans live short lives and have selective memories..that why we rely on DATA
OtagoMark 7 months ago
@OtagoMark What "things" arent increasing in intensity and frequency. It you are referring to frequency of setting hi-temperature records that is increasing, while the lo-temperature records are decreasing. Exrtreme weather events - same. Proportion of strong huricanes (measured by energy disspated) and so on.
drkstrong 7 months ago
@drkstrong the temperature records from this last decade have been relatively stable. If they were increasing in intensity as you so say, then it would reflect on data - but it does not. The fluctuations have been stable since the 1990s with modest increases up until the 2000's.
Igneous01 2 months ago
@Igneous01 The last decade was the warmest on record, the 90's the 2nd, the 80's the 3rd and the 70's the 4th. 2010 is already the warmest year on record. 2011 will not make it into the top 10 years (but will be close) as we have had a sustained La Nina for the bulk of the year.
drkstrong 2 months ago
Thank you for posting!
order9066 1 year ago 2
Always going in my climate playlist champ.
Fists up!!
chotaboy66 1 year ago
Wonderful, kudos to you for your dedication.
Sharing now.
28318511 1 year ago