Earth's Temperature at Highest Levels in 400 Years 1044
thatguywhoiam writes "Congress asked, and the scientists have answered: 'The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The
National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the 'recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia.'"
So... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
Please accept that "global warming" is not conclusively linked to man, oil, or any other favorite targets of the left. The Earth goes through cycles regularly, and until you can PROVE that man is to blame, stop using man's actions as fuel for political attacks.
Signed,
The Voice of Fairness and Reason
What caused the warming 400 years ago? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm prepared to be labeled a mindless republican bushite and modded down for this but..
If it currently the warmest it's been in 400 years (or the past few millenia) that means it was this warm 400 years (or a few mllenia) ago. Since obvioulsy it wasn't human generated greenhouse gasses that caused the previous temperature, it does call into question the certianty that human generated greenhouse gasses is causing the current warming.
Now if the scientists can come up with causality for the previous warming periods, such as volcanic or solar activity and we aren't experiencing the same now then that makes more of a case.
This just in . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
sucks to be you if you live in the desert (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and with much of China and India either already a desert or turning into a desert due to deforestation thousands of years ago, it's not going to get any better for them.
The desert is actually spreading too - look at China in google earth and see how much of China is sand, and with hunter/gatherer populations foraging for food and fuel, animals eating every plant that springs up from the earth, and pavement being laid down everywhere to speed rain runoff and reduce the amount of water that saturates the soil - the situation looks bleak.
Seriously, I hate to sound like a tree hugging hippie, but if everyone in the world planted a few trees, I believe we could have a positive impact on the global climate
Re:This just in . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I'll tell you to look up the term Milankovitch Cycles and be done with you.
Interestingly, (Score:4, Insightful)
Weasel Words: Scientists vs. Politicians (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose you ask the question: Is X happening?
When a scientist says that a phenomenon "X is probably happening", or "the bulk of the evidence indicates that X is happening", he means "I'm pretty damn sure about it, but because everyting in science is subject to further investigation, I'm open to hear evidence to the contrary."
When a lawyer says that "X is probably happening", or "the bulk of the evidence indicates that X is happening", he means "I haven't the foggiest idea, and I need wiggle room so I don't look like an idiot when someone who knows what he's talking about asks me."
Trouble starts when the two world views are mixed. The scientist hears the bolded words in his part of the speech -- and the politician hears precisely the opposite.
The qualifiers are necessary to the scientist, because they're part of why a theory is explanation falsifiable (and by extension, scientific). Science can't progress except for those areas in which there exists Reasonable Doubt.
The politician hears only the phrases "is probably" (as opposed to certainly), the "bulk of" (as opposed to all of the evidence), and the "indication" (as opposed to conclusive truth pounded out on the table before Judge and Jury) that something is the case. In an adversarial "justice" system, you can't use weasel words, because the holy grail is Proof Beyond A Reasonable Doubt.
And the planet burns because people who don't grok science prefer oratory.
What the hell, the dinosaurs died because they didn't understand science either.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I'm anonymous coward, so it's harder to get the coveted +5 blessing, but really, sometimes the wisdom of anonymous cowards is better than the Wisdom of Cowards.
Re:What caused the warming 400 years ago? (Score:3, Insightful)
The hockey stick (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes, the infamous hockey stick (the chart). It was what convinced me that global warming was human-caused. Until of course I found that when you put random data into the analysis, you got a hockey stick [lbl.gov].
What it comes down to is that more than 200 years ago we didn't have accurate temperature measurement. Everything before that is an educated guess. And the precision necessary to show a fractional degree of change is simply unattainable.
Where are the error bars on the hockey stick? It's shown as if we had exact data for the last 1000 years--which of course we don't.
Both 400 and 2000 are true (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:1, Insightful)
If we don't do something about it like yesterday, then we're all going to fucking die. As in extinct.
Do you want to continue to assassinate the character of the scientists who are trying to do something about it? Or do you just want to sit in your air conditioned H2 and hope you don't run out of gas?
Signed,
Reality
Re:please (Score:3, Insightful)
Did they need "precautionary actions" the last time this happened 400-X000 years ago?
What about before that?
No? Hmmm...
There's no question in my mind that things like greenhouse gases and the decimation of the ozone layer are Bad Things, but I think there's more practical arguments that you can make for taking further measures against them than "ZOMG TEH EARTH WILL HEAT UP & KILL US ALL!"
While we're writing letters (Score:3, Insightful)
Please leave your particular country's ideological distinctions out of this scientific debate that they have nothing to do with. Also please acknowledge that there is more to the world than your narrow-minded battle against an ideological perspective that you happen disagree with.
Please at least learn to control your memes to the point that they no longer lead you to infer things that clearly aren't being implied. A phrase like "Please accept that Global Warming Exists." does not imply a belief that ""global warming" is conclusively linked to man [or] oil", or even a preference for left-wing politics.
Your little political campaign has taken your bigotry to the point where you sign yourself off as "The Voice of Fairness and Reason", which is so intellectually dishonest that my dog just read this page and went and took a shit on an encyclopedia in one of his usual crude but poignant symbolic gestures.
Signed,
Fuck You
PS: In case you missed it, I was implying that my dog is smarter than you.
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
If you believe the climate is stable, then of course it's bad! But we know better. Based on the data, we're towards the end of a brief (10k year) warm period toards the end of a 100k year warming cycle, but we're still in an ice age. We have 400k years of pretty good temperature and CO2 data now from the Vostock ice cores, and it's clear that a stable climate is an illusion caused by man's relatively short lifespan. This fact is as clear as the fact that global warming is happening.
So, let's assume that mankinds actions are capable of affecting the climate short term (for a few thousand years). Do we want to turn the thermostat up, or down, or try to keep global temperatures about the same? While the last option might sound good, trying to keep achieve stability in a chaotic system that we don't really understand and can barely model is probably pointless.
If we have to choose between sea level rising a bit, and glaciers covering England and most of Europe (on the upside, we'd lose Canada too), warming is probably a smaller problem to del with than cooling. Regardless of what we do, temperatures are certain to return to the ice-age norm long term (all the carbon in the air, water, and all fossile fuels still in the groud are completely trivial compared to the carbon cycle of the lithosphere), but that's a problem we can consider in another 10k years.
If you've never thought about global warming beyond "prevent climate change", you haven't really understood the issue. Preventing climate change isn't a long-term option.
Re:please (Score:5, Insightful)
If its A) and we worked on B), then we profit from less oil dependence and less smog, particulate matter,etc
If its B) and we assumed A), we all die.
Until we know more, I wish people would stop pretending they know what's happening. We have a couple theories, thats it, no proof. (correct me if I'm wrong)
Junk Science Clouding Real Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that this point is warmer then some other point in some arbitrary number of years means nothing. There have been literally countless points in time when you can point backwards and say that it has not been so warm for 400+ years. Any idiot can see that pointing out that we are in another of such periods where the last local max with 400 years ago is thoroughly and completely normal and uninteresting.
Flouting stupid statistics like this is what makes smart people believe that global warming is a crap political ploy by environmentalist/anti-globalist/leftists/exc. If your goal is to divide, crap like this is a great idea as it assures everyone that the opposing side are idiots who couldn't tell the truth if their life depended upon it. If your goal is to build a consensus and spawn action, throwing out junk science is a waste of everyone's time.
There are a lot of good reasons to believe that the Earth is heating in an appreciable way and that humans could very well be the cause of much of that heating. We don't need to throw out junk science and sensationalist crap like "OMFG hottest year in 400 years!" as any idiot with even an ounce of grey matter is going to realize that "hottest year in 400 years" is pretty damn normal during any heating phase, especially heating phases that happen on geologic time.
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
A few degrees will screw the world's climate (Score:3, Insightful)
An Inconvenient Truth (Score:3, Insightful)
This congressional inquiry dovetails nicely with the documentary that features Al Gore, An Incovenient Truth [imdb.com]. I recently saw the movie, and while I was aware of the problem of Global Warming, I'm now truly worried that my later years (I'm currently 35) are going to be more about surviving in an even increasingly difficult environment instead of just living. Watching graphs with exponential progressions coupled with comparitive photographs taken over the last 50 years is turly sobering.
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:3, Insightful)
The scientific consensus is that global warming has been caused by people. It is the politicians and their devoted followers who think that there is some sort of controversy. Secondly, from TFA, solar fluctuations and volcanic activity cannot explain the increase in temperature alone. Finally, you're asking scientists to conclusively PROVE that global warming has been caused by humans. This is impossible. Likewise, it's impossible to PROVE that quantum mechanics and general relativity are true. All scientists can do is look at the evidence and surmise what they think is happening. That's what they're doing, and you're ignoring them because they're telling you what you don't want to hear.
Signed,
Someone who listens to the experts
Re:please (Score:4, Insightful)
For example: "I think the point is that, since rainstorms are either caused by A) water vapor in the atmosphere or B) aliens who want to drown us, we should start working on B in case it isn't A. If it's A and we work on B by creating a multi-billion-dollar network of space defense lasers, then we profit from being able to stay alive. If it's B and we assume A, then the aliens drown us all, take over our planet, and make it into a global resort/spa for the Pangalactic Federation."
Could someone update the Wiki? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:3, Insightful)
My big concern isn't global warming but all of the pollutants in our oceans and entire global food chain that could nix us all..
Re:What caused the warming 400 years ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
As to the greenhouse gas hypothesis, there are a couple of real problems with it:
(1) about 60 percent of the temperature increase happened between 1500 and 1900. The notion that there was a lot of unusual greenhouse gases in that interval is questionable at best.
(2) there is significant data suggesting "global warming" of similar order of magnitude on Mars and other planets.
(3) most of the argument that greenhouse gases are causing the warming are based, first and foremost, on the assumption that there is unusual warming, which is not a very strong conclusion, as noted by the report. Reasoning from "there has been global warming" to "there is an anthropogenic reason for global warming" to "anthropogenic causes for global warming are proven by the global warming" is circular.
Re:Unprecedented? No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Idiotic and Evident Lies (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are going to say with a straight face that global warming as evidenced by hotter and hotter summers for instance is not a fact, I suggest you take a good look at the way glaciers in the Northern hemisphere have been rapidly growing smaller and smaller by each heat-record breaking year after another. Of course, glacier shrinkage _could_ just be a part of a huge scientific plot to get everybody to think that this "global warming" is a fact. Surely Al Gore put them up to it!
P.s.
2005, also known as "last year" was the hottest year on record.
You can continue believing all you want about 1998 being the hottest year on record, but sadly for you, that does NOT change the fact that it isn't.
Oh shit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:3, Insightful)
Please read the document you are commenting on before spouting empty rethoric. It strongly suggests that "global warming" is linked to man, oil, and other favorite donors of the right. The Earth goes through cycles regularly, but the rate of the current rise in temperature is unprecented as far as scientists can check back. Until you can PROVE that someone has WMDs, or that homosexuality destroys families, or that use of marihuana turns innocent children into crazed killer, or that storing every phone call ever made stops terrorists with the same amount of certainty before taking some inappropriate and inefficient course of action--including, but not limited to infringing on civil rights or starting a war--, stop using your ignorance of the scientific process as fuel for political attacks.
Signed,
The Voice of Fairness and Reason (not assocuiated with the Fair and Balanced Voice)
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:3, Insightful)
May sound odd.. but this is why I support putting bases on the moon and colonies on Mars. Not so much to actually ahve them there, but to start learning how to survive those situations so we can use the same technology here when we need it. Cuz when we do need it, we won't have the time to develop it.
Re:This just in . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
If you put it next to the age of the Earth, the meteorite-induced disruption to the world's climate that put the nail in the coffin of pretty much every large land animal on Earth (including the dinosaurs) doesn't seem that significant.
Nevertheless, to the dinosaurs it was pretty significant.
Likewise, the question with anthropogenic global warming and other alterations to the environment induced by man is not "are the disruptions a huge deal on a geological timescale", but "do the disruptions pose an intense danger to the continuation and quality of human life on earth." To which the answer, for global warming, seems to be a pretty clear yes.
Re:What caused the warming 400 years ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
The data shows a flat line for several hundred years, then a "hocky stick" increase coinciding with our use of fossil fuel, to use the term in TFA.
It's a little off to call those data. Those curves are reconstructions of temperatures from proxy data, like tree rings. What's more, as was pointed out above [lbl.gov], feeding statistically appropriate noise to the reconstruction methods used by Mann et al. rsults in a statistically indistinguishable "hocket stick."
Now, this doesn't mean there has been no warming --- in fact, we're pretty durn certain that it's warmer now than it was when Isaac Newton was alive. The Thames doesn't freeze solid like it used to. What it does mean is that the methods of Mann et al. can't distinguish data that shows warming from data that is uniformly random. In other words: warming, yes; hockey stick, no.
That is the crux of the issue.
Except for the part about "not true."
Now I know people who would probably fire back with the cliche "correlation doesn't imply blah blah blah", and then shut their brains off. The cliche is overused, and correlation ABSOLUTELY DOES point fingers at possible sources of the observed trend (that's called the Conclusion of the Results, or rather the interpretation of the experts).
Except the actual report doesn't say that.
The "actual interpretations of the experts" are that they have little confidence in the conclusion that global temperatures have actually increased dramatically or unexpectedly. (Again, that doesn't mean they haven't. It just means that we don't know, and the actual data and the reconstructions from the data don't tell us.)
Since NO OTHER MEASUREMENTS trend the same way, the choices are fairly limited as to what could be causing it.
On the contrary, since reconstructions of plain random numbers provide the same "hockey stick" results as the data, the reconstructions of Mann et al. don't actually tell us anything.
Sadly, I don't think four misstatements in four paragraphs is a
Re:please (Score:1, Insightful)
You want Flamebait? I got your flamebait. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one side you have scientists with the historical and current data, and the liberals who cheer them on. On the other side you have those who say Global Warming is just made up by a conspiracy of scientists and liberals.
Discuss.
Re:Right, just past the mini-ice age.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The parent wrote:
Although they do acknowledge the existence of a "mini-ice age", the press release put out by the NAS (National Academy of Sciences) specifically rejects the argument that it was warmer in the middle ages then now:
While it's true that "Cyclical Global warming != greenhouse effect", this does not mean that humanity is in the clear as far as global warming goes. I believe the concern is that there is no sign that the current heating trend is slowing down. The trending in the NAS report abstract [nas.edu] is pretty disturbing. When this is compounded by the above argument that it's warmer now than it has been in the past, there is sufficient ground to worry that we have broken out of whatever cyclical pattern may have existed.
Beyond this, I don't think it matters whether the current phase of global warming is caused by humans or by cyclical sunspots (or whatever). Rising temperatures have the ability to really throw a wrench into global systems (like economies). If we have the ability to even *try* to mitigate the trend, I think it is worthwhile to do so. Arguing that we have no reason to act because it's not our fault is, in my view, a cowardly way to pass the buck... so that we can continue to live extravagant lifestyles in the short term at the expense of the future.
wrong debate (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyhow. I think we're on the wrong debate. Everyone is arguing is global warming occuring or not. And if it is agreed that it is, then the argument shifts to, are people to blame or not.
It's all entirely irrelevant. There are two things we should always be doing.
1) Trying to live responsibly on the Earth. This means, minimizing pollutions of all sorts, etc.
2) Figuring out how to adapt to changes in the Earth.
Ultimatly we WILL have an impact. It's the nature of the beast. At best we can try to minimize it, if only to have cleaner air to breath and cleaner water to drink. The Earth will under go changes. Some caused by us perhaps, many not. We simply have to adapt or die out. Short of killing every human on the Earth, we will never remove any impact that we cause. All we can do is try to minimize it.
Re:This just in . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
But sure, let's sit back and watch what happens. Big experiment in social restructuring, could be fun. Could be hard for someone, but that's the breaks. And maybe in 100 years, after the migrations have started in earnest and whole continents empty into whole other continents, rivers of human flesh and misery passing each other in hopeless crawls from one ecological disaster area to another, maybe our grandchildren won't be digging up and violating our corpses in blind rage at how stupid and cynical we were at the very moment in 400 years of screwing up when we could have turned this ship around and saved them a lot of human misery.
Cuz you know, it's just 400 years of history. Blip in the continuum man. Not my problem.
Re:What caused the warming 400 years ago? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Both 400 and 2000 are true (Score:1, Insightful)
Just to preempt any "who are these dissenters" nonsense I'll just point to one that I think is worth looking at: Patrick Michaels from the Cato institute and University of Virginia. He's a proffesor of climatology and his point meet my point in agreement: we need more science and less politics. I have my own reasons for seeking alternative energies, but what I want to push is good science and that's it. I strongly believe science can help humanity, but only rigourous science. We want more data. We want better models. Not too much to ask and it's not talking crazy.
You want to swing science around like a mace? Fine go ahead, but that shit better be rock solid. Don't pretend for a second that skepticism is somehow ignorance, because that is the foundation of science. Stop automagically associating anyone that questions with people hell bent on our destruction, because its just not true and it serves no one but you.
You've been misled, again, by knee-jerk reactions (Score:2, Insightful)
I know your comment is a response to Gore's book (I read your link). But your comment is irrelevant to the story you commented on. Thanks for the knee-jerk reaction. Your comment should be modded -1 Offtopic.
They only looked at data for the Northern Hemisphe (Score:2, Insightful)
self correcting problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:temperature (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, if only half what the sceintific consensus predicts is left to happen, we're all going to be pretty damn sorry we didn't do more sooner. The not giving a shit attitude isn't going to cut it when all hell breaks loose.
When the oceans rise accelerates in the next decade and property taxes go up to the stratosphere to pay for sea walls and such, as propetry values plummet, I don't think anyone living near a coast will be laughing. Or hurrcaines devastating the gulf region. Or freak heat waves over 100' lasting a week or more in the midwest. And a bunch of other things from freak rains and flooding in some places to droughts in other places. If the whole country goes the way of New Orleans, who will be laughing?
Who will be laughing then when power consumption becomes mandated and taxed to bejezus becasue of some global crisis making the present oil shock seem like nothing? Or when there is mass starvation killing maybe a hundred million or more due to weather changes. Then terrorism goes totally out of hand. The global economy could suffer creating massive hurt everywhere, even in rural America.
Imagine for example massive and widespread starvation in Africa and places like NKorea, Pakistan, and many others who will also be struggling start exporting nuclear technology to countries in the midst of civil unrest who need bargaining chips to get aid for starving nations.
Re:Queue up the proof by anecdote posts (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Some additional info (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy. It's because most of the people who push for people to do something about it have unpalatable hidden agendas. For every person out there using global climate change as their stick to get you to live your life the way they think you should, you've got another who sees through their agenda and finds a way to believe they're lying about the climate change too.
You want people to believe the climate is changing? Stop using climate change as a weapon in a culture war.
Re:please (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time it happened the dominant life form wasn't industrialised and happily stuffing the atmosphere with greenhouse gasses
Thing is, it's going to be very difficult to remove greenhouse gasses and stop global warming in 100 years' time should the majority of climate scientists actually turn out to be right. It's really not going to hurt us that much to stop producing greenhouse gasses now, and it might even turn out to be the right thing to do. Why not do it?
Re:Queue up the proof by anecdote posts (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm guessing you're also looking forward to the collapse of the food chain that a bit of warming could bring?
Re:temperature (Score:4, Insightful)
Forget global warming, worry about Judgment Day. If you don't accept Jesus, seriously, if only half what the biblical scholar consensus predicts is left to happen, you're all going to be pretty damn sorry you didn't do it sooner. The not giving a shit attitude isn't going to cut it when all hell breaks loose.
What, you don't believe in Hell? What, the amount of scariness of the claimed bad things that are purported to happen doesn't make it any more convincing?
Re:Reading the actual report is better than Yahoo (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, talk about mis-representing a report. The 400 year number is due to lack of high-quality data prior to that date, not selective choice of reference temperatures. As you've clearly read (at least) the summary, you'll note that they also claim that the past few decades have likely been the warmest since ~900AD (a time frame which included the 'medieval warm period' as well). As for 'unprecented low temperature interval,' that is a rather blatent fib...quoth the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: "modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1C, and says current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe, and the conventional terms of "Little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period" appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries."
In other words, the conclusions of Mann et al. aren't very well supported --- and those are the ones most often used politically.
That is also a rather slanted view of the report. It isn't that the general conclusions aren't supported, it is that the data is of too poor a quality to make such a claim as 'warmest decade in a millenium.' The very next paragraph says that surface temperature reconstructions for pre-industrial revolution time are one of multiple pieces of evidence for anthropogenic climate change, and "they are not the primary evidence." So, really the report agrees with Mann that post-industrial human events have increased the global temperature. It is also notable that Mann's 1999
paper does note the uncertainty of proxy measures for such long timescales. "Taken at
face value, the 20th century appears to be the warmest century this millennium, the
1990s the warmest decade, and several recent individual years the warmest on record.
However, the expanded uncertainties in early centuries preclude, as yet, any definitive
conclusions prior to about AD 1400."
-Ted
Re:Queue up the proof by anecdote posts (Score:1, Insightful)
Climate may change in different ways in different places, but no individual weather event is, by itself, proof of climate change; at most it's merely a data point. Anyone who doesn't recognize this isn't necessarily a nut -- they may merely be misinformed.
Of course, it's just as common to find people who don't want to believe the evidence, and use this as part of the logical fallacy that goes: "people claim their unusual weather is due to global warming, but since any single event can't be definitively linked to climate change, then global warming isn't real."
Sometimes this is followed by "and I like warm weather anyway," or something similarly obtuse, which of course demonstrates they've either got a wit so dry it'd make a lemon pucker, or they completely fail to grasp the actual implications of global climate change.
Re:What caused the warming 400 years ago? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's pretty amusing, given their own admission that they have no reliable data stretching back more than 400 years. You'd think they'd avoid making blanket statements about greenhouse gas levels and global temperatures when there isn't any solid measurement of either thing from 1 A.D. to about 1600 A.D.
I guess passing off speculation as fact is the new empiricism. So long as they're goodfacts, of course.
Max
Re:What caused the warming 400 years ago? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's the most interesting part to me - especially since environmentalists tend to forget that the long term change in land use could be more relevent than burning coal. An exploding human population needs farmland, which is notably not forests or jungles buffering the CO2 content of the air. If cutting down forests and jungles to grow food for humans is actually the problem, then what is the solution? Starving the poor and firing all the farmers are even less popular than shutting down polluting powerplants...
Re:Baseline (Score:4, Insightful)
Except for, you know...studies done on polar ice. Real problems with urban heat islands there.
Look, folks. We're clearly being astroturfed by someone. But no matter what your local Republican party shill tells you, there is no scientific dissent: global warming is caused by human-produced increases in CO2 in the earth's atmosphere.
Re:Queue up the proof by anecdote posts (Score:1, Insightful)
Those may range from irrelevant, to merely wishful thinking, all the way through to completely illogical. The fact that climate has changed in the past isn't really relevant to the negative effects that we will suffer as it happens now, nor does it diminish the fact that humans are causing it, and causing it at a rate unparalleled in recent geologic history.
Fortunately a study of the world's mass extinction events (mass extinctions basically require a collapse at the base of the food chain) suggests that in most cases a single factor wasn't adequate to trigger wholesale foodchain collapse. Since we're merely causing catastrophic global climate change, the foodchain is unlikely to completely collapse. But I really don't find the unlikelihood of a "top 5" or "top 10" extinction event very reassuring considering the amount of havoc that even a few degrees of rapid warming will still wreak.
Re:temperature (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, our preoccupation with such infitesimal trivia as Slashdot moderation while we burn the planet is pretty disgusting. Especially considering all the CO2 we're pumping into the atmosphere posting this discussion. But it's clear that the only real obstacle to stopping the pollution before it's too late is the vast inertia among most people. The only way we have to deal with each other without deepening the defensive denial is to kid and kibbitz with each other, while keeping committed to stopping the pollution.
It's not much, but it's all we've got.
Re:Some additional info (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Both 400 and 2000 are true (Score:4, Insightful)
The temperature record isn't just that recorded as it happened over the past few years - it's recorded in arctic ice and other longlived stable deposits.
I'm not even going to dignify the rest of your garbage with detailed examination.
Keep revising reasonable paragraphs into gibberish lies. It's your least weak point, though it is a disgusting mess.
Re:temperature (Score:1, Insightful)
Global Warming = based in fact and science
Judgment Day = based in fairytales and closing your mind
Re:Queue up the proof by anecdote posts (Score:2, Insightful)
> about climate science trying to shoot down the studies of people
> who have spent their whole lives studying it.
I dunno... I think it's very disturbing --like having an idiot in the room waving around live grenades. Doing the will of oil barons, pushing the idea that there's nothing wrong, sending the world climate further in the wrong direction isn't much different. It's just harder to see the direct connection. The poor of New Orleans didn't get blown up by terrorists, but they're still very dead.
Re:Resistence is futile. (Score:3, Insightful)
Regarding your prediction of stable CO2 levels - that'd be a dramatic improvement over the current situation, which forecasts (and currently is) about 7% yearly growth in the best cases where the countries in question are actually doing something. And this is not going to happen unless people drastically change their habits and their demands.
Finally, dealing with climate change will be a LOT harder than trying to stop it or reverse it. The principal mechanism of global warming is known (green house gases, and primarily CO2). The mechanism through which global warming can at least be mitigated is well known. On the other hand, odds-on scenarios of what could happen during the next 50 years of current CO2 increase are dreadfully expensive and disruptive. It will cost me less to cut back on my energy expenses than it will cost me to accomodate the global economic crash that will follow any hypothetical large-scale climatological changes.
Your little snippet was not hard reality - it was little more than smug justification of why it's ok to continue with the current course. It might be the more probably outcome, but self-fulfilling prophecies are too easy to put forward to consider them serious debate.
Air and water pollution might be a large problem as well (and it certainly isn't a hidden problem - ask France), but that doesn't mean that you can't deal with both. Especially since the solution for one might be the solution for the other.
Rate of change (Score:3, Insightful)
> relatively short lifespan. This fact is as clear as the fact
> that global warming is happening.
But is it happening faster than it typically does?
In many parts of the US, it's common to see temperature changes of 100 degrees over the course of a year. And it's not really a problem - plants are adapted to that cycle, animals migrate/burrow/grow or shed winter coats, people know to wear the right clothes and use the right technology, the change is gradual enough to largely avoid thermal shock to infrastructure, and so on.
If you saw a temperature change of 100 degrees over the course of an hour, though, it would be a disaster. If it happened in summer, for example, vast swathes of vegetation would freeze and die and whole populations of animals would be unprepared and freeze to death, both of which would lead to ripple effects up the food chain, including us (crop failure). Thousands of people would die as they were caught unprepared without proper clothing and heating. The immense heat differentials in the area would whip up enormous storms.
Analogous problems could happen from unusually-fast changes in global temperature -- for example, disruptions of whole ecosystems as plants and animals are unable to adjust fast enough, substantial increases in dangerous weather as energy is rapidly added to the system, flooding displacing hundreds of millions of people over the course of a few years, and so on.
Most of these problems are made worse the more rapid the change is; there's a reason flash floods are more dangerous than seepage. Add to this some of the nonlinear effects that oceanographers I know are worried about (e.g., the Gulf Stream shutting down -- which we know has happened in the past -- and drastically changing the climate of the Atlantic region), and you get the potential for immense human suffering.
Will it kill off the human species? Probably not. But using that to suggest it's "okay" is as nonsensical as saying it's "okay" to have all your limbs blown off, so long as you survive.
> trying to keep achieve stability in a chaotic system that we don't
> really understand and can barely model is probably pointless.
In your opinion, perhaps. Throwing up our hands and crying "ohh, it's all too complicated" is not the approach that has led the advance of civilization and knowledge. We control chaotic systems pretty successfully every day - the turbulence around jet engines, for example - so there's reason to believe we could usefully influence other chaotic systems.
If nothing else, the simple fact that we're already influencing this chaotic system and pushing it into a state which is worse for us makes the question somewhat moot. We're already influencing the system, so we have no choice about whether to influence it, only about how. Unless you're arguing that blindly whacking away at an incompletely-understood system is just as good as employing what knowledge we do have as best as possible.
But that would be a strange claim for you to be making, given the continued success of jet engines and our continued incomplete understanding of turbulent fluids. If that's your claim, the evidence isn't on your side.
Re:temperature (Score:5, Insightful)
Being "apathetic" IS taking a position, it's supporting the current "going to hell in a handbasket" strategy. And the real case is, if you read this or any other FA in a scientific publication:
It's very much like the health issues of smoking. Billions of dollars spent lobbying to make it look as if there is doubt when the case is proved by any reasonable definition.
Re:temperature (Score:5, Insightful)
- Scientist 1: Global warming is for real
- Scientist 2: Right, here's why
- Scientist 3: If that is true, X should happen...oh see, it does!
- Scientist 5: Oh, but Y does not fit...ih, once we correct for the measurement error, it does!
...- Scientists 900-1100: Let's summarize all this in a number of reports
- National academy of science: Let's also summarize this...oh look, the summaries agree!
- Paid shill: But duh! Erm...no, isnt!
Of course this still underestemiates the degree of work and scrutiny that has gone into our scientific understanding of global warming, but you get the idea.there's a lot of nonsense on both sides (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at places like dailykos.com and other political proponents of "we need to do something", even mainstream ones like Al Gore, they're at huge odds with the scientific literature. For example, you now hear all sorts of nonsense about how increased hurricane frequency proves we need to do something, even though there is no evidence at all of a relationship (some scientists have hypothesized a relationship between warming and hurricane intensity---not frequency---but even that is highly speculative and not generally accepted).
In addition, I've heard claims that severe winters also support global warming, but the UN's general reports on the subject dispel that as a myth, and claim that global warming would result in, on average, slightly less severe winters. (Of course, severe winters don't *disprove* globl warming either---there are still plenty of year-to-year fluctuations even if the average is getting warmer.)
People are also conflating multiple trends. The important issue from a human-change point of view is the extent to which greenhouse gases and other human creations are changing climate. That's a separate question from the *aggregate* climate change. There *is* indeed good evidence for human-caused climate change, but it is still a separate question. For example, glacier retreat is often cited, but is largely a different phenomenon---Canadian glaciers have been retreating since about 1842, long before significant human-caused global warming. Current glacier retreat does appear to be caused or accelerated by global warming, but showing a picture of "glacier in 1840" and "glacier now" is just shady politics, when most of that recession happened from 1840-1930. And, of course, we should also take into account the estimates that about 30% of current warming is caused by an odd increase in solar output.
I think on the whole shoddy pro-global-warming argument is hurting the case. When the facts are on your side, there's no need to embellish them, and it damages credibility. This is why Real Scientists tend not to do it.
Re:temperature (Score:3, Insightful)
The only problem is. The oil industry / Polluters are also applying the same logic, but for their means.
Re:temperature (Score:3, Insightful)
Look again, kozumik. The GP poster hasn't claimed that he believes in Jesus, and I think he probably doesn't, although that's by no means certain. What he's doing is highlighting the fact that the GGP poster is claming that you should believe in global warming becauses of the severity of the consequences. You shouldn't do that. You should believe in global warming, or any theory (including Christianity,) based on the evidence that affirms the truth of the theory. Here's how the GP poster accomplished that. He described another theory, one that many believers of global warming disbelieve, and claimed that you should believe in that theory based on the severity of the consequences. Now, if a believer in global warming rejects that argument, then by analogy, he should also reject belief in global warming if the argument for global warming is based on the same type of argument.
It's a lot better when you don't have to explain it.
-Loyal
Re:Some additional info (Score:3, Insightful)
Ill take a stab at it from an arm-chair philosophers perspective.
The conecpt assaults two sacred cows from the USofAmerican worldview:
1) Capitalism is good.
2) Religion (Christianity) is good.
If you acccept Anthropogenic Climate Change, you have to recognize that it is (literally) being caused by behaviours encouraged and enabled by the free market (Hyper Consumerism). To *stop* emmitting CO2 would require a curb in the marketplace.
People being happy, making love to their partners, singing, reading -- just existing isnt causing this problem. People's overconsumption of Oil (in the West) is causing this. Where is this oil being consumed? By our over-producing, unnecessary economies.
In my opinion, our Governments should tax the heck out of the worst abusers (automobiles / sprawl (development) / ?). But the Gov. cannot be a tool to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, thats a job for the invisible hand, anything else is COMMUNISM. And we know how we feel about that dont we. Totally Un-American.
The USA Government can not be trusted because it is corrupt plutocratic body. Its power is derived from monied interests, not the people.
2) The earth was created in 7 days to be the posession and playground for God's favorite playthings: Humanity. If God had wanted us to Save The Planet, he would have included it in the Commandments. The planet is outside of our control, as God controls everything, from the planets' natural disasters to its seemingly man-made ones. That the planet appears to be undergoing human-caused ills it is untrue, its really human arrogance denying that God is truely the master of our destiny... and on and on and on. Any manner of empty-headed foolishness can be justified when you accept the supernatural.
Accepting (or taking precautionary actions) on Anthropogenic Climate Change require that USofAmericans question the foundations of their self-percieved greatness.
As long as A) The USA Gov. is corrupt and B) Fundemental Religosity reign, the American People will not be ready to address the externalities of their behaviour (Global Warming).
"All Time Highs" Don't Matter (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Will climate changes significantly affect the carrying capacity of our biosphere/economy/ecology?
2) Is there anything we can do to mitigate such affects, if any?
3) At what point do we lose the ability to make such an impact?
Scientific opinion seems to be crystalizing on at least the first two items. Yes, the Vikings may have thrived in warmer temperatures, but the entire population of the planet in 1000 A.D. was less than the U.S.'s today (about 265 million). There was more resilience in the system to accept large migrations and crop/prey shifts. I think that's not so true today.
We also seem to be reaching agreement that yes, mankind does have an effect of some kind on world climate. How much of an effect is difficult to define.
In the end, it becomes a question of risk mitigation: If we can take action that might make the affects of climate change less, and the actions would have low enough impact on worldwide standards of living, we should take those actions. The debate seems to come down to this: What level of impact on current living conditions are we willing to accept, given what we know, and our confidence in the information. The answer will be different in Washington, Beijing, Paris, Islamabad, and the Kalihari desert.
Re:temperature (Score:5, Insightful)
Who was alive 13.7 billion years ago to confirm the Big Bang, or, if you're a creationist, who was around 6000-odd years ago to confirm Genesis?
If you want to know where these claims come from, try finding out [wikipedia.org] instead of just rubbishing something you clearly don't understand.
Anyone who thinks we, as humans, are big enough to affect this God given Earth in a permanent way, has a blown up ego.
Sure. Thing is, I don't particularly care about this God-given Earth. As you say, it can take care of itself. In the event of e.g. nuclear armageddon, the planet would barely notice and would carry on spinning round the sun in much the same way. Why, it wouldn't even wipe out all life!
But that wouldn't be much consolation to the folk left crawling around in the glowing ruins of what were once cities, dying slowly of radiation sickness.
I don't know about you, but I'm actually kind of attached to human civilisation, and I'm pretty damn sure we, as humans, are quite big enough to do quite a bit of damage to that. For example, by use of the aforementioned nuclear weapons -- or, according to some scientists, by the effects of our actions on the environment.
Global warming, if true, probably won't wipe out life on earth. But it could make it pretty uncomfortable for an awful lot of humans. Again, I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, that counts as a Bad Thing. Now, yes, fighting global warming would cost money, money which would be wasted if it turned out not to be true after all. But what I want to know is why so many people seem to think that this makes it stupid to spend that money. Nobody seems to have any problem with paying for health insurance (you have no proof you'll get sick!), or car insurance (you have no proof you're going to crash!), or house insurance (you have no proof you're going to be burgled!). So what's wrong with planet insurance?
So what... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Then maybe.. (Score:4, Insightful)
IANA(I Am Not Anything)
I'm just a dumb college kid. A layman. I only believe in the moon and stars because other people told me they're more than pictures on the ceiling of the world. I don't have any other evidence except
So when all
We have a problem because the media profits from reporting disasters. So we have a boy-who-cried-wolf problem. I'm still waiting for SARS to kill me, to be killed by human-borne bird flu, to be blown up by terrorists, to die of cancer, to die of obesity, to die of cancer(again), see economic disaster in social security, peak oil, man-made disasters from nukes, or anthrax... Because of the mostly BS catastrophes above, I get a very high noise-to-signal ratio, so much so that I'm increasingly disenchanted with listening at all.
Without real scientific reports that follow the filter requirements of the parent poster, I just have to listen to what the "experts" say. And there's so much crap out there that I have to pick and choose which reports to follow(but which ones?!) or just tune the whole deal out and get back to my job pumping out 401k distribution confirmations here in HR.
And if we do reach a good consensus(which the majority here says we have) what do
Me, Mr. Average Joe, lives on a diet of work, leisure, and sleep. The news is 90% entertainment, and maybe 10% relevant news. I don't feel like there's a whole lot I can really do at the moment with my meager resources, and there are more pressing issues. This "global" perspective stuff is great, but I
Re:To: Mr. George W. Bush (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't really give a damn what the cause is. We -- the human race -- can have a net positive effect on this issue. That, alone, is reason to do it. The potential to save our children and our planet only adds to that reason.
Re:temperature (Score:4, Insightful)
This makes a funny point, as well.
What do scientists have to gain by claiming global warming is happening/refusing the oil industry? A salary, at best. Climatologists and research scientists definitely don't make big bucks (maybe decent money on writing books, but hardly billions), relying mostly on NSF grants to do their research. Lying for a meager living is not something most people are willing to do.
What does the oil industry have to gain by refuting the scientists? Lots and lots and lots of money. Lying for a few billion dollars is something that even I would consider. Everybody has a selling point.
Let's try this analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine I see a line of people going on and on, until that line bends around a corner. Now, let's say I tell you that I'm taller than everyone in that line until it bends around that corner. Would you necessarily conclude that immediately after it bends around that corner you'll find someone taller? Because that's the kind of logic you're applying here.
Now, let's imagine that you do claim that. I now find a way to see around that corner and find tham I'm taller than everyone I can see there until it bends around yet another corner. Will you know claim that this claim means that there's someone taller right around the next corner?
Has it ever been hotter than it is now? Absolutely. Were we here to suffer the consequences? No. Has it ever heated up this quickly before? Probably not since the Earth first coalesced.
Re:temperature (Score:2, Insightful)
<rant>
What happens after an ice age is over? It warms up, right? Well, we've been in a post-ice age period since, well, the last ice age. It's still significantly cooler than it has been in the distant past, and IMHO the earth is going to warm up, whether we do it or not.
Look at this, from UCSD:
(graph): http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/images/r
(article): http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatec
and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age [wikipedia.org].
Now, of course that doesn't mean we should be responsible, and reduce our emissions. I'm just tired of all of the FUD and fearmongering being spread around about doomsday and the like. A little science if you please.
</rant>
Re:temperature (Score:3, Insightful)