Global Warming, Pollution, and Politics

[BrightNoon]

The evidence is before anyone who is interested in the truth. If you are not, very well. I have nothing else to say, and no I have no interest in participating in a debate about how exactly we should radically change our society and reduce our living standards in order to combat a purely imaginary, propoganda fueled threat.

Thanks

[Theaetetus]

Originally Posted by BrightNoon

The evidence is before anyone who is interested in the truth. If you are not, very well. I have nothing else to say, and no I have no interest in participating in a debate about how exactly we should radically change our society and reduce our living standards in order to combat a purely imaginary, propoganda fueled threat.

Someone a little salty that Aedes started going through the list of signers to your insignificant paper that no climatologists take seriously, and is filled with people that have no knowledge of the workings of climate. As I have said, the paper is a literature review, and is not scientific--not to mention, a poorly constructed literature review at that. For a good literature review, see the IPCC report. I have read it a few times, and have been following its ongoing advancement and drafts for years now. That paper was put together by a large group of climatologists and oceanic and atmospheric scientists. Not to mention, the report itself is peer reviewed, not just the sources they derive their information from.

But thanks anyway for trying to derail a thread by changing the subject of what was originally intended to be discussed. This thread was not about reducing our living standard (are you blind and not able to see that the powers that be are doing that anyway with society at the moment as it stands). This thread is about doing what is fair, and making sure that no one has to share more than their fair share of the burden so others can live more comfortably at their expense. That is what we have in the world today, because developed countries continue to sour the environment by using more than their fair share of resources, and forcing lesser countries and people to take on more of the burden of pollution than they deserve.

But besides that, I love how a conversation about global warming is quickly shifted to Al Gore by a libertarian or conservative that has not looked into the vast literature on global warming other than an Al Gore propaganda piece put together by Hollywood. Is it sensationalized, of course that is Hollywood for you. But sometimes in order to reach everyday common people, you need to scare the sh!t out of them a little.

Anyway, lets get back to making this a constructive thread on how we can begin to change the status quo, and work towards evolving society beyond the industrial age and the failed debtor economy that has exasperated the global warming/pollution problem.

[Dave Allen]

Originally Posted by BrightNoon

I don't mean to steal your thunder T., but the first thing needed to solve these problems is the realization that anthropogenic global warming is not occuring and that the natural climatic changes that are occuring do not present nearly the threat which Al Gore's animation of Miami underwater would suggest.

Basic evidence of this claim, which I will detail later (its a bit late on the east coast):

1. While there is a correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and atmospheric temperature, it is not as it appears on cursory examination: as we got in Al Gore's propoganda. Increases in temperature have always preceded increases in CO2; likely because sea water contains more dissolved CO2 than is in the atmosphere and releases more when warmer. This explanation also accounts for the delay between rising temperature and rising CO2 that's evident in the record; i.e. oceans take centuries to warm or cool in response to changing atmospheric temperatures, as water has a very high specific heat.

2. CO2 is a very insignificant greenhouse gas. Water vapor accounts for well over 90% of all greenhouse warming. Moreover, human emmited CO2 accounts for a tiny fraction, well under 10%, of CO2 produced on earth and released into the atmosphere, which comes mainly from geothermal activity and micro-organisms.

3. The 'incredible' and 'unprecedented' rise in atmospheric temperature over the last century and a half is fictional. That data begins around the Monder minimum, one of the coldest periods in the last 10,000 years. In other words, the increase is more of a return to norality than a exceptional event.

4. Even this increase is suspect, because these measurements are based on ground temperature, in many cases at urban sites where there is a definite and well documented 'heat island' effect. In the last 25 years, satellite imagery shows virtually no increase in atmospheric temperature, as woukld be the case in there were greenhouse warming.

5. Finally, there is no a consenses amoung relavent scientists in the field. According to recent polls, almost 40% were either not sure about anthropogenic global warming, or were convinced that it did not exist.

More to come...night

Have you seen this video?

YouTube - 2. Climate Change -- the objections

[Caroline]

They should shift cargos transported by lorries and vans etc to trains but it's more expensive.

[RDRDRD1]

It may be too expensive for the UK, Caroline, but it makes perfect sense for North America where trucks can roam thousands of miles.

[Khethil]

I find it fascinating that there are people out there that believe this is one big overblown conspiracy thing; I shouldn't, but I do. That it's become politicized, too, shouldn't be much of a revelation either; unfortunately, this has the most damaging effect, that being the polarization (circling the wagons) between different political ideologies on an issue that, itself, doesn't contain any direct correlation to the political theater.

Once such loyalties get involved, the entire subject becomes mired in an emotional soup of finger pointing, indignation and claim-vs-counterclaim. That such a broad-reaching issue has been relegated so, is sad and potentially dangerous - yet another testament to the folly of associating issues not intrinsically political, with politics.

Dang

[Theaetetus]

Here is a recent article that describes a linear relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and warming of global temperatures.

Carbon Emissions Linked To Global Warming In Simple Linear Relationship

ScienceDaily (June 11, 2009) — Damon Matthews, a professor in Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning and the Environment has found a direct relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. Matthews, together with colleagues from Victoria and the U.K., used a combination of global climate models and historical climate data to show that there is a simple linear relationship between total cumulative emissions and global temperature change.

These findings will be published in the next edition of Nature, to be released on June 11, 2009.

Until now, it has been difficult to estimate how much climate will warm in response to a given carbon dioxide emissions scenario because of the complex interactions between human emissions, carbon sinks, atmospheric concentrations and temperature change. Matthews and colleagues show that despite these uncertainties, each emission of carbon dioxide results in the same global temperature increase, regardless of when or over what period of time the emission occurs.

These findings mean that we can now say: if you emit that tonne of carbon dioxide, it will lead to 0.0000000000015 degrees of global temperature change. If we want to restrict global warming to no more than 2 degrees, we must restrict total carbon emissions – from now until forever – to little more than half a trillion tonnes of carbon, or about as much again as we have emitted since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
"Most people understand that carbon dioxide emissions lead to global warming," says Matthews, "but it is much harder to grasp the complexities of what goes on in between these two end points. Our findings allow people to make a robust estimate of their contribution to global warming based simply on total carbon dioxide emissions."

In light of this study and other recent research, Matthews and a group of international climate scientists have written an open letter calling on participants of December's Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to acknowledge the need to limit cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide so as to avoid dangerous climate change.

Carbon Emissions Linked To Global Warming In Simple Linear Relationship

[RDRDRD1]

What's curious Khethil is the uniquely American-aspect of this. American conservatives dispute global warming science as a hoax and yet it was Britain's Conservative "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher who first raised the call to tackle the problem. One of the strongest advocates in Europe today is Germany's conservative (Christian Democrat) Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She also happens to hold a PhD in physics. The Right does get it, just not in America. What's happened is that the climate change issue has been transformed into the latest front of America's "culture wars." It's a political football, more than anything else, in the United States.

[salima]

Originally Posted by RDRDRD1

What's curious Khethil is the uniquely American-aspect of this. American conservatives dispute global warming science as a hoax and yet it was Britain's Conservative "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher who first raised the call to tackle the problem. One of the strongest advocates in Europe today is Germany's conservative (Christian Democrat) Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She also happens to hold a PhD in physics. The Right does get it, just not in America. What's happened is that the climate change issue has been transformed into the latest front of America's "culture wars." It's a political football, more than anything else, in the United States.

politics will use whatever it can for a football. whatever works-and this is working in america because if they accept as reality the danger of global warming and believe it is caused by humanity they will have to take responsibility and bear the burden for what they are a major partner in causing. you are quite right it has been changed and used to represent a threat to western culture somehow-that is a political ploy, to disguise one issue as another that provokes more emotional response from citizens.

in the world, as a global issue, those who are on the top rungs of the economic ladder (which is also synonymous with power) do not believe that they are holding themselves back while they try to keep everyone else from going forward. but just as the saying 'a chain is only as strong as its weakest link' states, this world is only as rich as its poorest nation, and each nation is only as rich as its poorest person.

[Aedes]

Most politicians who have a problem with global warming are ones who have a financial stake in companies that produce greenhouse gases.

Most scientists who have voiced opposition to anthropogenic global warming are not actually climate scientists, and are probably just allying based on their political views.

Having a PhD in physics might help someone read a journal article better, but that's not what makes one an expert in climate change.