Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[Norbert]

You are clearly letting your bias interfere with your brain function. Maybe it's a steady diet of soy and lack of meat?

As to your point #1. In the past 150 years it has indeed been getting warmer. Is your brain not able to comprehend that the Earths history is longer than 150 years?

The problem is not that the next 4 Billion years will be like the last 4 Billion years, but that the next 150 years will be what the last 150 years indicate.

As to point #2, the Co2 inputs I referenced are clearly the human inputs to the atmosphere. But your steady diet of Beyond meat has left you low on cholesterol and therefore unable to understand even the most basic of concepts.

You mean CO2 emission? There is also reduced CO2 absorption. Those are names by which I know those things.

There is not much to disagree with: The effects of additional CO2 on temperature, as well as the significant effect of small-sounding temperature differences in the global average. In the opposite direction, for example, the Ice Age was only about 7 degrees Celsius lower.

Unless you consider the distortions from the oil and mining industries as equally valid information, which it isn't.

 

[Swampgator]

You acknowledge warming, you acknowledge human driven increase in CO2, yet you don't acknowledge that this is something unprecedented in all of Earth's history? Human produced CO2 has never happened before now.

I agree with that. I also agree that, in the long run, better to stop emitting CO2 as well ( and importantly pollution in general). I just think #1 ECS is much smaller than IPCC estimates. I see best estimate as Lewis and Currys value of about 1.7C per doubling of Co2. and #2, I don't think this is a huge long term problem worth spending trillions of government dollars on. Why? Because EVs and Solar have already crossed the tipping point were the market will dictate fossil fuel use goes down to negligible amounts. Tony Seba predicts a 30% reduction by 2030. This is purely market driven by the tech disruption. That 30% reduction is orders of magnitude better than what the Paris accords dream of accomplishing.
So this is non issue for me. For the CAGW crowd, it is their obsession and religion, and no amount of reason will hold sway.

 

[Swampgator]

I agree with that. I also agree that, in the long run, better to stop emitting CO2 as well ( and importantly pollution in general). I just think #1 ECS is much smaller than IPCC estimates. I see best estimate as Lewis and Currys value of about 1.7C per doubling of Co2. and #2, I don't think this is a huge long term problem worth spending trillions of government dollars on. Why? Because EVs and Solar have already crossed the tipping point were the market will dictate fossil fuel use goes down to negligible amounts. Tony Seba predicts a 30% reduction by 2030. This is purely market driven by the tech disruption. That 30% reduction is orders of magnitude better than what the Paris accords dream of accomplishing.
So this is non issue for me. For the CAGW crowd, it is their obsession and religion, and no amount of reason will hold sway.

Should probably add point #3 that although it is warmer today than 150 years ago, it is not even close to being as warm as the earth has been in prior time periods. Hence, another 1 or 2 C warming by the end of this century is not going to be catastrophic.

 

[Norbert]

I agree with that. I also agree that, in the long run, better to stop emitting CO2 as well ( and importantly pollution in general). I just think #1 ECS is much smaller than IPCC estimates. I see best estimate as Lewis and Currys value of about 1.7C per doubling of Co2. and #2, I don't think this is a huge long term problem worth spending trillions of government dollars on. Why? Because EVs and Solar have already crossed the tipping point were the market will dictate fossil fuel use goes down to negligible amounts. Tony Seba predicts a 30% reduction by 2030. This is purely market driven by the tech disruption. That 30% reduction is orders of magnitude better than what the Paris accords dream of accomplishing.
So this is non issue for me. For the CAGW crowd, it is their obsession and religion, and no amount of reason will hold sway.

Those are minority positions and wishful thinking. (I've noticed Curry long time ago.) Which doesn't mean that they are wrong. But fact is, temperatures are not only climbing, but also rather quickly and very consistent especially since 1970. US CO2 emissions are nearly constant for a long time, contributing to a growth of CO2 in the atmosphere. The reduction of coal is counter-balanced by the increasing economy. But the climate won't take "increasing economy" as an excuse.

 

[Norbert]

Should probably add point #3 that although it is warmer today than 150 years ago, it is not even close to being as warm as the earth has been in prior time periods. Hence, another 1 or 2 C warming by the end of this century is not going to be catastrophic.

It (probably) won't be catastrophic for the planet, but it may be catastrophic for our present culture. These arguments are not really substantial, they are obfuscations by promoters.

 

[JRP3]

Should probably add point #3 that although it is warmer today than 150 years ago, it is not even close to being as warm as the earth has been in prior time periods. Hence, another 1 or 2 C warming by the end of this century is not going to be catastrophic.

I'll have to point out, again, there were never billions of humans trying to survive when it was warmer before and, more importantly, the rate of change may not allow the environment and organisms enough time to adapt. Drastic, fast changes in climate are often extinction events. Makes sense not to tempt fate with an uncontrolled experiment on our environment.

 

[SR22pilot]

Should probably add point #3 that although it is warmer today than 150 years ago, it is not even close to being as warm as the earth has been in prior time periods. Hence, another 1 or 2 C warming by the end of this century is not going to be catastrophic.

You bring up something that annoys me with environmentalists. They say we are destroying the planet. I think the planet will be just fine. Homo Sapiens not so much. If you want to talk about temperature range keep it real. No point in mentioning that the planet was once molten on its surface. Homo Sapiens weren't around. Similarly, at one time the atmosphere had lots of CO2 but little O2. An organism that generated O2 as a waste product effectively ended its own dominance. Again, not relevant since man wasn't around. Homo Sapiens have been around about 200,000 years. I'll add another 100,000 years for good measure. Please limit your temperature variation discussion to the last 300,000 years. We have an existence proof that man can survive that temperature range. The ice ages were probably unpleasant but man survived. OK, how warm has it gotten in the past 300,000 years? That should set the upper limit we want to allow.

 

[Norbert]

You bring up something that annoys me with environmentalists. They say we are destroying the planet. I think the planet will be just fine. Homo Sapiens not so much.

Well I think that is mostly meant to mean: The planet as we know it, as our living environment, the geographical features and the plant and animal life as we know it.

OK, how warm has it gotten in the past 300,000 years? That should set the upper limit we want to allow.

Uhmm, I don't know what the warmest in the last 300,000 years was, but I'm very unsure we would be fine with that. For example, we might have to rebuild all our buildings or even move our cities, change all our farming, and so on.

 

[Swampgator]

You bring up something that annoys me with environmentalists. They say we are destroying the planet. I think the planet will be just fine. Homo Sapiens not so much. If you want to talk about temperature range keep it real. No point in mentioning that the planet was once molten on its surface. Homo Sapiens weren't around. Similarly, at one time the atmosphere had lots of CO2 but little O2. An organism that generated O2 as a waste product effectively ended its own dominance. Again, not relevant since man wasn't around. Homo Sapiens have been around about 200,000 years. I'll add another 100,000 years for good measure. Please limit your temperature variation discussion to the last 300,000 years. We have an existence proof that man can survive that temperature range. The ice ages were probably unpleasant but man survived. OK, how warm has it gotten in the past 300,000 years? That should set the upper limit we want to allow.

Ok I'll grant you the 300K years, even though our genus, Homo, is closer to 2 million years old. We are not much different genetically from erectus for example that lived 2 million years ago.
Still, there is plenty of evidence the earth was warmer than today during your chosen time span.
Greenland is one good example. https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gs...-at-the-norse-eastern?redirectedFrom=fulltext

And of course the Holocene Climate Optimum was about 6-9000 years ago. It was warmer then than it is today. Now, CAGW crowd has done everything they can to dispute this. They claim it was not global, for example. And a google search only points to the pro CAGW narratives, because google is completely neutral.


But there is plenty of evidence than Sapiens has survived and adapted to temperatures warmer than today. Also, Sapiens had the ability to relocate to cooler areas if they so choose.
How many of us want to live in sub saharan Africa?

 

[Swampgator]

Well I think that is mostly meant to mean: The planet as we know it, as our living environment, the geographical features and the plant and animal life as we know it.



Uhmm, I don't know what the warmest in the last 300,000 years was, but I'm very unsure we would be fine with that. For example, we might have to rebuild all our buildings or even move our cities, change all our farming, and so on.

Oh, yes that does sound inconvenient. Much better to confiscate, literally, trillions of dollars of wealth from humans around the world to spend it on emergency green projects, supervised of course by our benevolent overlords?

 

[ohmman]

Please limit your temperature variation discussion to the last 300,000 years. We have an existence proof that man can survive that temperature range. The ice ages were probably unpleasant but man survived. OK, how warm has it gotten in the past 300,000 years? That should set the upper limit we want to allow.

Still, I'd argue it's vastly different. We have almost 8 billion Homo sapiens on earth, many of whom are clustered in coastal areas and other high risk areas. What happened even 500 years ago cannot be compared to today's world.

 

[Swampgator]

Still, I'd argue it's vastly different. We have almost 8 billion Homo sapiens on earth, many of whom are clustered in coastal areas and other high risk areas. What happened even 500 years ago cannot be compared to today's world.

Red Herring my friend.
Humans either have been adapted to temperatures 2C higher than today, or they have not.
The number of humans has nothing to do with that question.

The answer to the question is, of course..... Sapiens is adapted to warmer temperatures than today. And can survive temperatures much colder than today, although cold kills a lot more of us than does warm.

 

[Swampgator]

Let's try this again, since the mod chose to remove my last attempt for snipiness:


Both JRP3 and Norbert reply with emotional responses. Their statements amount to "you could be right, but I am. So there!"

When I state that I do not believe 1-2C of warming will be catastrophic, the reply is that it's not the amount of warming, but the rate of warming. Moving goalposts?
JRP3, do you think animals and humans in particular need to evolve in order to deal with a 2C temperature change? You deal with probably 15C every day.

And what does "catastrophic to our present culture" even mean Norbert? You realize that almost of of the warming has been at the poles, right?
Temps in areas where most of earths creatures live have not gone up much at all during the past 150 years.

Now you could make the argument that the poles losing ice will lead to problematic loss of habitats. That is a reasonable argument.
But some some vague claim about culture catastrophes is a pretty lame rebuttal.

If this one gets removed I would like the mod to send me the part that was snippy, so I can better understand what they are moderating.

Thanks

 

[Swampgator]

Just wanted to also post this chart Tony Seba presented earlier this month. Point being that even if you believe strongly in CAGW, it is not going to be an issue because the days of fossil fuels are numbered, because of the marketplace disruption occurring right now.
All of the gloom and doom scenarios rely on RCP8.5, which models a sharp INCREASE in CO2 emissions over the course of this century.
That will not happen.

 

[ohmman]

Humans either have been adapted to temperatures 2C higher than today, or they have not.
The number of humans has nothing to do with that question.

The answer to the question is, of course..... Sapiens is adapted to warmer temperatures than today. And can survive temperatures much colder than today, although cold kills a lot more of us than does warm.

A single human can adapt? Sure. What about an entire society? Believe it or not, the latter question is much more relevant in a world with 7 billion humans. It's not a red herring at all, but if you want to get into logical fallacies again, I'll be happy to turn that switch back on. It didn't work out well for you last time.

 

[Swampgator]

A single human can adapt? Sure. What about an entire society? Believe it or not, the latter question is much more relevant in a world with 7 billion humans. It's not a red herring at all, but if you want to get into logical fallacies again, I'll be happy to turn that switch back on. It didn't work out well for you last time.

That is your opinion.
I just got tired of your use of that term. That's why I went there today. You are easy to predict.

 

[ohmman]

I just got tired of your use of that term.

When did I say red herring?

 

[Swampgator]

When did I say red herring?

Never. I just knew when I said that you would get excited about Logical fallacy.

 

[ohmman]

Never. I just knew when I said that you would get excited about Logical fallacy.

You must keep your goalposts on wheels.

 

[SR22pilot]

Still, I'd argue it's vastly different. We have almost 8 billion Homo sapiens on earth, many of whom are clustered in coastal areas and other high risk areas. What happened even 500 years ago cannot be compared to today's world.

Perhaps; but it is a good period over which to see what we have evolved to live in. The climate over that period was generally colder than now. Even if you go back 600,000 years you will see that CO2 levels for that entire period were lower than today. Getting mean global temperatures over that period can be difficult but we know we are near the max if not above the max global temperatures during that period. My main point is that talking about temperatures millions of years ago is meaningless. Just pointing to something we descended from doesn't work either. For all we know that ancestor was adapted to a very different climate. Heck, if you go back far enough you get cells living off of CO2 in an atmosphere lacking O2. That doesn't mean zero O2 would be OK for us.

All this brings me back to my basic argument that the earth's climate was fairly stable over the last 800,000 years or so. It has varied between ice ages and warm periods due to orbital mechanics but it is the climate we have evolved to tolerate and even thrive in. Playing God by distorting that climate is reckless at best. Unless we have models that we are 100% confident in then we are best to leave past as prolog and not muck things up.

As for the expense of fighting climate change, I want to minimize overall expense. The people who worry about the cost are people interested in their pocket book today at the expense of others who come later. It is a very selfish and self centered position. Just like with a large ship at sea, it is better to make corrections early. Waiting raises the expense. There are already more people employed installing solar than in the entire coal industry. Let coal die. Removing the oil depletion allowance would fund something like a $15,000 rebate on 1.5 million BEV's per year. Finally, what is wrong with a carbon tax? We don't let people throw their sewage into the street. Sewage systems are basically a tax on sewage. If we wait too long we will enter an era of forced carbon capture which will be very expensive and therefore very damaging to world economy.