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I'm thankful Climate Change is a myth!

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by Stev0, Nov 25, 2011.

  1. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    That my friend is a fallacious argument. Because I can't solve a problem with on solution, part of the solution is ergo useless. No one is suggesting that the small efforts of one person, or one company is going to change the world. What I am arguing is that the actions of the many are the cause of many of our problems,, and they also contain the solutions.

    To argue that GHG/AGW is the cause of all climatic, geologic change in the world is equally silly. We do what we do, both good and bad. We cause problems, we can use solutions to solve them. If you were (able) to stop GHB completely you could likely prevent the human caused climate change,, and sea level rise due to global warming.

    I am arguing that the scientific consensus about global warming is quite clear, from small studies to larger aggregated studies. The relevant issue is not how much damage climate change is caused by weather events (as measured by dollars, irrespective of non economic loses,, like habitat, or species or quality of life etc) but how much the climate is,,, changing climate!
    It is also not widely reported on, but in addition to sea levels rising due to the volume of fresh water coming in, but also due to thermal expansion of the sea water.
     
  2. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Don't call me friend buddy (sarcasm see TP southpark if you don't understand). This should be obvious but somehow you think you can convince enough people to "solve" this problem. Are you following durban? Do you think that even if the US cut GHG emissions to 0 sea level would stop rising. Look at the political realities on what can be done. We are not going to build an giant ice machine, or nuke china to stop ghg. Even if temperatures stayed at these levels ice would melt.



    At least you got the first part. Now how about the second. If you stopped human caused climate change from ghg would disasters drop greatly. Here I think the data is quite against you.

    Now lets look at the dollar costliest weather disaster in the us, if you don't adjust the dust bowl. New orleans had rapid wetland destruction that we knew about (no agw needed), levees not built to handle a large huricane, and federal insurance and assurances that the city, even parts reclaimed from swamps was safe. Population and expensive construction were encouraged even though huricane disasters have been happening their since the 18th century. When Katrina made landfall it was a class 3, and the best climate models say it was not made more likely from ghg but winds most likely were 1% stronger. Yet somehow this was caused by GCC? A class 3 making landfall when 5s can hit. But the big problem with this false reasoning is it keeps the focus on ghg instead of mitigation that can help. Moving people out of harms way, protecting and reinforcing the wet lands and barrier islands, construction and maintenance of proper levees.

    Step one for Portland was denying that it is in as serious a flood plane so that the city can expand its tax base. Then it has people saying if anything bad happens its the fault of global warming. Does that make anymore sense?



    about 0.7 degrees since industrialization, sea levels have also risen about 6 inches in the last century. I was commenting on a post about how much climate change was affect weather. I did not state or even hint that the climate wasn't changing.

    Silly me, I thought that was reported on. Those talking about meters of sea level rise are the ones not talking about it, because it makes you think about the science and not the scary stories.
     
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  3. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    You are not suggesting that climate change is not happening,,you are just discounting the factors that humans may (are) have in that change.

    Enjoy your denial,, we will let our grandchildren decide who is (was) right!

    Icarus

    PS. It might help you to stop thinking in terms of the "dollar cost" of climate/weather events, and look from a broader perspective. I also would suggest a less north American centric view. To suggest that Katrina as the "costliest" weather disaster in the US misses the larger point.

    Like I said before, there are things that are not quantifiable using simple economic terms. How do you calculate the cost of habitat destruction, extinction, changes in agriculuture? The list goes on and on.
     
  4. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I am not, and never said anything like that. In fact I said exactly the oposite, that climate change is happening and humans contribute especially in matters like sea level rise. I did say the risky behaviour that causes more weather damage is the great increase in population and stuff in harms way. You are the one who is in denial.

    What about the poor children. That's what its about. Huh. So you want to own property in a flood plain, but think that you can insult people into making it safer. Listen your denial rhetoric is not only false, but its religously false. It makes it less likely that you understand what is going on. Look at Durban and then say you could get the US congress to reduce ghg by 50% in the next 10 years. One it would be believing in magic, but two it would not do anything to reduce the risk of flooding in portland or anouther huricane hitting bangledash or galveston. Do you think it would. Not that I think your much of a problem. The population of maine is less than the Austin metro population. But by continuing to believe in Santa Green and ignoring the science makes me want to correct you.

    You must remember that all those things that exaggerate ghg effects on weather look at value not other factors including that non peer reviewed insurance study that is the basis of the Weather is getting more extreme and this was defined as more expensive. My first criticsm of the news report was world wide, and have done that to you. Do you think the Bhola cyclone or tsumatra tsunami took place in America? Look at the real numbers. Deaths in the last decade world wide from extreme weather are at about 10% of the levels they were in the 20s and 30s.


    Umm. yeah these things are more important. So decreasing the amount we destroy barrier islands and cut down rain forests is much more important than Californias AB32. If you look at extinction the number 1 driver is loss of habitat from deforestation, then polution, then off in the distance warming. I actually was part of NSF research to model animal adaptation to weather and climate change. If you cut off the ability of the animals to move species will die even without climate change, but add it in and it makes it a little worse. Remember it was hunting not climate change that killed the Giant Sloth, but climate change may have killed the woolly mammoth.
     
  5. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    And the Dodo bird is extinct not because it was stupid, but because it tasted good. There are many factors - most of them driven by humans - causing the current sixth extinction. There is no question we are doing great harm, in many ways. Spending all this precious time arguing over one factor is really not all that helpful.
     
  6. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I'm just trying to remove some of the religious rhetoric from one of those factors. Seriously I only meant to correct Dave's news story with some facts. It is important to be able to talk about things without being labeled a denier. These days sometimes science is not enough, and you must believe everything the high priests say or the true believers will decide its all your fault for not believing enough.

    hyo, I'm glad you got my point and I get yours. Invasive species are another fact of extinction in this case man on the dodo. In hawaii it was the cats and rats that have contributed to 140 recently extinct species. These factors can be mitigated much more easily than burning of fossil fuel. Australia is trying with only a little success because of the late start. Chopping down the rain forests and filling in the wet lands are other more immediate factors for species extinction.
     
  7. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    AG: "I am not, and never said anything like that. In fact I said exactly the oposite, that climate change is happening and humans contribute especially in matters like sea level rise."

    **cough, cough**

    I suppose if you are a denialist, you might as well include yourself in the grand delusion.
     
  8. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Improving our preparation for damaging events sure seems like a good idea, without regard to the extent of climate change in the coming decades, and without regard to the extent to which climate change could increase the events. This is one of the one of the things I strongly agree with Pielke Sr. about.

    Even with a anthro CC effect, many times of disasters will occur generally where they have done so inthe past. Columbia Lamont Dougherty Earth Observatory has done excellent studies and mapping on that.

    Since it is highly likely that fossil fuel CO2 release will continue to increase for a decade or two, we might well turn our attention to disaster harm reduction. Assuming there is money available.

    In parallel, there are many things that will cause net improvements in energy efficiency, crop yields, habitat preservation and restoration, and energy importation from unfriendly countries. All those are beneficial even ignoring the carbon cycle impacts.

    So we could go pretty far, facing realpolitik, and without need to argue most of the matters that are being argued here.

    Frustrating to me that people at both extremes view the others as 'religious' (meant, I presume, with negative implications). Not themselves, but the others. Hard to make much headway against that.
     
  9. cycledrum

    cycledrum PSOCSOASP

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  10. zenMachine

    zenMachine Just another Onionhead

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    Speaking of the relationship between climate change and extinction of species:

    http://www.livescience.com/17719-species-extinctions-climate-change.html

    As climate change progresses, the planet may lose more plant and animal species than predicted, a new modeling study suggests...

    ..."We have really sophisticated meteorological models for predicting climate change," Urban said in a statement. "But in real life, animals move around, they compete, they parasitize each other and they eat each other. The majority of our predictions don't include these important interactions."
     
  11. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    Climate Change is an issue of concern, but plastic has already invaded and has permeated every single inch of this planet and everything on it and we continue to supply the plastic monster to the tune of several hundred million tons annually

    [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7X-J1DhfjE]Plastic Planet - Trailer - YouTube[/ame]
     
  12. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    While sea level changes will definitely have an effect on the coastal areas, this is almost insignificant to the virtually uncontrollable drive of building huge million dollar condos and 10-100 million dollar homes as close to the shore as possible.

    In other words, while the report talks about the march of the ocean inland, the real story is the march of florida housing into the ocean.
     
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  13. Stev0

    Stev0 Honorary Hong Kong Cavalier

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    If Climate Change was real, you'd think it would affect gardening.

    Oh, wait...
     
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