Is Global Warming Unstoppable?

Yep, you are dead right, but the natural climate oscillations will happen regardless of what we do, right?
I'm 100% in agreement with you on this, now get up off the floor, that's it, slowly does it.
The problem isn't the natural climate oscillations that we can't change by our activities, but lets just say you add half of one degree Celsius to the average global temperature above the average that should exist due to that unavoidable natural climate oscillation, then what will happen? You say the natural climate oscillations are currently driving temperatures down, but if CO2, a known greenhouse gas, (that is physics 101,) keeps that falling temperature from falling as low as it would and then on the next upward oscillation drives the global average up higher than it would have been, where are we then? If the earth is currently cooling the polar ice and high altitude ice should be increasing, is it? When the temperature rises on the next upward part of the natural oscillation will there be as big a reserve of ice as there would have been if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were at the same levels they were at in 1900? Or will the melt back continue?

OK, hit me with the school thing, I'm ready for it, I have a box of tissues by the monitor.

I don't believe some of the stuff I have heard Al Gore say, I don't believe tides will rise 25 or even 10 feet, but some pretty populous places in this world get flooded now on high tides during storms, soon, with just a few centimetres higher average sea levels they will be getting flooded with just a high tide, what will happen if there is also a storm is hard to imagine. We can't stop the tides, we can't stop the storms, we can't stop the natural temperature oscillations but we can make an effort to reduce carbon emissions and take the top off the global average temperatures. If we are wrong, so what? The rich will still have all the money and all the power anyway, either way.

Anyone who thinks raising the price of carbon derived energy will not reduce demand for carbon derived energy and increase demand for energy which would be more competitive isn't thinking about the economics or recent history. When "gas" was $4.00 a gallon early this year Prius were in very short supply even though production didn't drop and production of SUVs and toy trucks slowed to almost stopped. Would that have reduced demand for "gas"? I think it might have. If the cost of coal went up because it was heavily taxed would power generation companies look for lower carbon alternatives? If they were more economical, I think they might.

Sorry, I have no links or graphs or pretty pictures to post, just opinions, and only my uneducated opinions. What would I know.

 

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.â€

Joseph Goebbels

Please note a couple of things.

The people who are lying, and have been demonstrated to be doing so, are those promulgating the AGW myth. They are also the tools of the U.N. - a government body - not a couple of individuals on a chat site. By definition, the believers of the big lie are the AGW faithful, not the skeptics.

The truth is coming out. The state and its tools are the dangerous things here, not natural climate change.

May the truth prevail.

P. S. Goebbels is deceased, so no one will be seeing him or saying anything to him. He lives in infamy, as will the perpetrators of the AGW hoax.

 

G'day Pat !

My only disagreement with you would be that the greenhouse effect of CO2 would probably not have a major influence.

Taxing carbon emissions will make everything related more expensive and this will hurt the poor the most. Taxing carbon won't make other energy sources more efficient, will it? It'll just make them artificially more competetive. Everything will still cost more.

The only reason I'm driving a Prius is because gas hit $4 and I freaked out. Your comments in that regard are apt.



My other car handled better, was more fun to drive, looked better, was more comfortable, etc. Had I anticipated the decline in gas prices, I'd still have my 'old' car and be content. It was made by Toyota.

Prius has grown on me some, but if I were a rich man, I'd be piloting a safer vehicle.

Cheers.

 

Do you agree that it is Physics 101 that CO2 acts as an insulator retaining heat which comes from the sun warming the earth? It does much less to stop the light of the sun hitting the surface of the earth.

It doesn't need to be major to cause a problem, that was my point. A lot of places in this world are on a knife edge now and a lot of people live there. Displacing those people will cause global pain as they re-settle elsewhere.

yes it will because it will include a component in the cost to rectify some of the harm being done. As long as the lions share of the tax is used to subsidise renewable energy installations in western and developing countries.

See, it worked, making something (gas) expensive made you reduce your carbon emissions and invest in new, efficient technology. That had a flow on affect, making car companies spend more money on developing more efficient vehicles. Did you go to Detroit's American Auto Show? I think every manufacturer had big green hybrid signs on their displays! Your motivation was money but it had the right affect.



<snip>

 

You can not compare climatology to evolution and big bang theory. Evolution is one of the most comprehensively developed theories known to man. Etc, etc, and the fact that those two theories are fascinating in no way improve the argument for anthropogenic CO2 driven climate change.

The problem with focusing on CO2 is that you ignore everything else. The climate system is complex - how can you put the focus on a single variable? Especially, when since 1850, there is basically no *correlation* between CO2 and temperature? Even you have said there is not a 1:1 relationship. You say above "global temperature increase" but we also saw global temperature decrease! In the last 150 years we've basically seen the same number of warming years as non-warming years.

If we improve the climate models, we may find there is a very, very tiny relationship of CO2 to temperature. I think that criticism of climate models was fascinating, because he addressed the topic of feedback systems and clouds, and that is a known deficiency of our current computer climate models.

You think it was CO2 that drove warming, but we had a similar rate of warming despite having little/no CO2 starting around 1860, and then we had cooling, then warming, then cooling for 40 years, then warming, then cooling for 9 years. I've posted a graph showing this previously.

P.S. - I love your RealClimate logo in your signature. It has a nice big 'ol sun in it! It's funny how you guys forget about the sun when you talk about global warming

P.P.S. - The theory of evolution did not predict human ancestors, it retrodicted them.

 

Actually Physics 101 usually covers waves, sound, light and Newtonian mechanics. Physics 101 would not cover greenhouse gases.

Pat, what people dispute is the *amount* of heat that anthropogenic CO2 traps.

While this sounds tragic, the fact is that these places where they live probably weren't available to live in during previous times when sea levels were higher. That means they recently became inhabitable, and as the earth continues to change they will probably become uninhabitable. Yes, it sucks. But there is likely nothing we can do.

Honestly, it's kind of like looking at New Orleans in Louisiana. Remember the hurricane? These people basically lived in a bowl. It was below sea level and directly adjacent to a big body of water, only separated by a man made wall (that failed, just like our theory of AGW.)

 

As usual, factually incorrect. The first prediction that human ancestor fossils would be found, and that the earliest ancestors would be found in Africa is present in Darwin's book "The Descent of Man".

 

I love that the only thing you can reply about is about evolution. A retrodiction is a prediction about the past. The prediction that human ancestor fossils exist is a retrodiction. That we would expect species to diverge on an isolated island is a prediction. I love evolution by the way. Richard Dawkins is one of my heroes.

 

Because we've covered everything else ad nauseum but denialism includes the inability to even acknowledge facts.

 

You mean that denialism include the inability to even acknowledge facts like that ClimateGate uncovered deceitful practices by the CRUminals? Or the fact that ClimateGate uncovered the gatekeeping practices of the CRUminals? Or do you mean facts like Mike Mann isn't a climatologist. Or that there is at best good correlation of CO2 and warming for a 20 year period?

No offense, but the AGWers are the denialists now.

 

Exactly.

 

Ufourya<

"
My only disagreement with you would be that the greenhouse effect of CO2 would probably not have a major influence. "

(my bold)

Are you willing to to stake the future of future generations on that probably ? I'm probably not going to get hit by another car on the way to town today, but I think the few dollars spent on seat belts, air bags etc make my chances of surviving any such accident better. I would also posit that seat belts/airbags etc save more money than they cost, much like most environmental regulations!

 

Nevada Prius writes: "Evolution is one of the most comprehensively developed theories known to man."

And yet there are moronic whackos who spend all kinds of time/energy/money etc trying to convince folks that it isn't true. Sound familiar?

 

Your car is probably not going to be hit by a meteorite while you are driving it. But I suggest you invest in a meteorite detection/evasion system at the earliest opportunity. And since there is a CHANCE said system might malfunction, I suggest a titanium sheild be attached to the roof of your car as well. Can't be too careful you know?

 

A great resource of information. From that activist organization, NOAA:

NOAA Paleoclimatology Program - NCDC Paleoclimatology Branch

With a complete subsection on the MWP:

NOAA Paleoclimatology Global Warming - The Data

In summary, it appears that the late 20th and early 21st centuries are likely the warmest period the Earth has seen in at least 1200 years.

And what a great figure including the whole Briffa dataset:

 

I had my tinfoil hat off while showering today and noticed a few cobwebs drifting from the antennae. Well, I cleaned the whole apparatus very carefully and after drying myself and the hat, placed it carefully back into place.

Amazingly, I received another transmission indicating that a main player at COP 15 might be perpetrating a huge fraud for the very mundane reason of acquiring great wealth and power. I know, I know, it may sound crazy, but:

Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri - Telegraph

The transmission is long, but here's a snippet:

...Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.
These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainable technologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year.
Today, in addition to his role as chairman of the IPCC, Dr Pachauri occupies more than a score of such posts, acting as director or adviser to many of the bodies which play a leading role in what has become known as the international ‘climate industry’.
It is remarkable how only very recently has the staggering scale of Dr Pachauri’s links to so many of these concerns come to light, inevitably raising questions as to how the world’s leading ‘climate official’ can also be personally involved in so many organisations which stand to benefit from the IPCC’s recommendations....

 

So, why is it again that NOAA is being sued to release data that it refused to cough up after a FOI request?

Update:
My mistake, it is NASA that is threatened by a lawsuit, but NOAA's policy has been to stonewall as well.

 

Your argument falls apart in two ways. First, the chances of being struck by a meteorite are so small as to be considered nil. I don't know of any recorded event that killed someone. More importantly, meteorite detection/evasion systems are not in any measure feasible in any measure.

The difference between your argument and mine is, if you accept the "probably not have a major influence" which it seems you do, as you made that statement, is that there is technology (ies) out there to mitigate it, at some reasonable probability of success at some reasonable net/net cost.

Once again, it seems you guys always fall back to , "well, even if it is happening, it isn't going to be much, and by the way, I don't wish to pay for it"! the net effect of which is to reenforce the perception that your other conclusions are ultimately biased by the money.

What you fail to get is that the solutions are in all probability likely to be cheaper (even for you) than not doing anything. Case in point is your choice to buy a Prius. You have said that you bought it to protect yourself from rising gas prices. Game/set/match! By buying the Prius you indeed do insulate yourself (somewhat) from rising gas price, and in some small measure help keep prices down due to lower demand. You also reduce your CO2 emissions relative to most other cars out there. If we had a $2 tax on gasoline (carbon tax) clearly, as you have demonstrated people will make changes to off set the cost increase. The net effect of which will be, to a certain extent will keep more of our energy dollars home rather than sending them off to potentially hostile countries,, like Canada and Mexico!

The funny thing about the "don't tax me/I don't want to pay" crowd is that their point of view is often so narrow, they don't see how any change in policy would solve multiple problems, and indeed benefit them financially. They are so worried about "losing theirs" they miss the chance to keep more.

 

Your graphic is basically a who's who of ClimateGate fraud. A good portion of those lines are by people who have either stepped down from their position (Jones) or are being investigated by their university (Mann.) Briffa is MIA. LOL.

I truly think this is among the most exciting times in science in the last 25 years. Every day more and more get's uncovered about this ridiculous hoax.

Google Nachricht

Read that, and look at the giant earth picture at the bottom. If you click it it brings up graphics of individual studies, and if you click the graphics it brings you (I haven't clicked every single one so I can't say it does every time) to the study that supports the graphic.

 

Probably because all of their data is from ClimateGate fraudsters.