Africa wants polluters to pay for climate change

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Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:59 pm

Magnolia wrote:

people who are suffering environmental degradation brought about largely by others

I know that this isn't helping to restore the peace, but if you have any evidence backing that statement up, I'm sure we'd all be happy to hear it.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:05 pm

@Magnolia
I read articles about climate change. It is just the first time I am reading about compensations. Asked by whom? The most corrupt countries on Earth. I am 99% sure that if those countries receive financial aid it will serve only to enrich those in power and do nothing for the people.
Do I feel some "civilised man's guilt" in you?
@irishemigrant
About Oceania, CARGO CULT rings a bell?

Not quite a Newb Joined: 18 Feb 2009 Posts: 29

irishemigrant wrote:

In Oceania, there's Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Carterets, all of whom are claiming against the hypothesis of AGW, but have caused their own problems, or are being destroyed by plate tectonics.

Not sure where the first part of the statement comes from. As for the second part, everything will fall prey to plate tectonics in the end, but unless someone comes up with a way to increase human life spans into the millions of years, it's not something either you or Kiribati needs to worry about at the moment

@Nick: I suggest you start here: http://www.ipcc.ch/ -- the website of the International Governmental Panel on Climate Change, where you can read extensive evidence for both the causes and the impacts of rapid climate change. The reports are all rather long, but each includes several summaries (usually listed as "Summary for Policymakers") with references to the chapters where detailed information (and even more references!) can be found. That's more evidence than could ever or should ever be needed.

If you have a comparably researched source of information to back up your presumed counterclaim, I would be happy to read it.

ETA (Because KS got in before me): No, no guilt. Just an understanding that the actions of people in one part of the globe can have profound impacts on the lives of people elsewhere and a firm believer that one should clean up their own mess, whether that mess is in their own backyard or thousands of miles away.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:19 pm

Oh goody, the IPCC Hypothesis, better known as junk science looking for evidence and not finding any.

Magnolia, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons still doesn't make the reasons right. Yes we should be stopping pollution, yes we should be cleaning up our mess

Using a discredited hypothesis to do it is not the right reason

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:26 pm

The IPCC is the biggest joke in the realm of "science". Words are not evidence. Let me get some testimonials for you from real scientists whose names were on that report.

EDIT: Why not chew on this for a while.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/968

Not quite a Newb Joined: 18 Feb 2009 Posts: 29

@Irish: Discredited by whom? Please point me in the right direction. The vast majority of the scientific community accepts this hypothesis and it is backed up by literally tens of thousands of individual studies in a vast variety of disciplines (and I don't mean discipline like your avatar would define it).

Bear in mind that most the of the medical treatments the average person will receive in their lifetime aren't backed up by anything remotely close to as much evidence as there is for human induced rapid climate change.

@Nick: I don't really understand what you mean by testimonials. I should think the summaries provided, which, by the way, had to be approved WORD BY WORD, by representatives from all over the world, should stand as testimonial enough.

I also don't understand how you can say you'd prefer testimonials to a vast amount of scientific evidence while simultaneously stating that "words are not evidence."

And, again, I wonder what kind of testimonials you ask your doctor to provide when they prescribe a drug for you -- they certainly wouldn't give you anything close to what some of the best scientists in the world would give you regarding climate change.

That article is hardly evidence. I think one of the things that comes up over and over again when there is a contentious issue that relates to science, is, frankly, a serious misunderstanding of how scientists work. No, there is no one giant global warming study that everyone puts up their right hands and swears to the truth of. There are instead tens of thousands of small studies on small aspects of the climate/earth/sea/atmosphere -- on its biogeochemistry, physics, etc. You ask other experts in those fields to look at that evidence, whether it's from a study of bacteria in one lake in one country or a computer model of the entire globe. When you put it all together, you reach one overarching conclusion: The world is warming at a rapid pace and humans are a major cause of that warming.

If you were to read the IPCC report (rather than one or two short articles by people of a clear political persuasion), you would find that there are many, many places where the panel reports that they are unsure of one thing or another or that more research is needed. That, again, is the strength of science. But, those uncertainties don't change the certainty of the overall conclusion.

And finally, if you don't believe in global warming, I wonder what part you don't believe in: do you not believe that CO2 and other greenhouse gases regulate earth's temperature? Do you not believe that releasing more of those gases would increase that effect? Do you have a supportable scientific hypothesis that rivals the one accepted by the majority of the scientific community?

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:45 pm

Magnolia wrote:

@Nick: I don't really understand what you mean by testimonials. I should think the summaries provided, which, by the way, had to be approved WORD BY WORD, by representatives from all over the world, should stand as testimonial enough.

And, again, I wonder what kind of testimonials you ask your doctor to provide when they prescribe a drug for you -- they certainly wouldn't give you anything close to what some of the best scientists in the world would give you regarding climate change.

That's just the thing. A large portion of those "best scientiest in the world" whose names were on that list did NOT approve it, and did NOT agree to be credited. Read the article I provided.

Magnolia wrote:

I also don't understand how you can say you'd prefer testimonials to a vast amount of scientific evidence while simultaneously stating that "words are not evidence."

Words are not evidence for a theory as ludicrous and detached as this. Words are evidence when they're coming from a person saying that they did not PERSONALLY agree to something.

Watch the film The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:45 pm

Climate changes? There were many of them in the past.
Last major glaciation and the thaw that followed it. Induced by prehistoric humans? Certainly not.
Europe's Little Ice Age, just some centuries ago. Induced by humans? Certainly not.
Present climate change? Definitely YES. Coal burning, all those automobiles and planes which burn hydrocarbons.
Wink

Let's not forget bovine (and human) flatulence.
6+ billions humans expel enough methane.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:48 pm

http://carlineconomics.googlepages.com/

Alan Carlin prepared this report for the EPA, it may be a bit long for you, 70 pages.

I'm pleased you refer to the IPCC report as an hypothesis, so far there has been no empirical nor experimental evidence produced to show any of the main claims that the IPCC push.

Mann Hockey stick -- junk

Tropic hotspot - not happening

CO2 main pollutant? At 380ppm +/- plants are still on a low diet, the less CO2 the more poorly plants can cope with water stress, 500 - 600 ppm is the preferred level for optimum growth.

No CO2? we all die from starvation.

If you think that plate tectonics aren't of a concern to me at present, we have 1,000 earthquakes per year here, from 2 up to 8 in magnitude. The Carterets which are used as a poster chiuld for AGW are sinking due to the corner of the plate being subducted under the Austro/Indo plate. Not being inundated by sea level rise.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:51 pm

Magnolia wrote:

And finally, if you don't believe in global warming, I wonder what part you don't believe in: do you not believe that CO2 and other greenhouse gases regulate earth's temperature? Do you not believe that releasing more of those gases would increase that effect? Do you have a supportable scientific hypothesis that rivals the one accepted by the majority of the scientific community?

I don't believe it's anthropogenic, and I don't believe it's perennial.

As KS said, the global climate is ALWAYS changing. If only people can affect it, then I wonder what caused all of the other climate shifts.

You've reached the point of self-parody right now.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 18 Feb 2009 Posts: 29

@Nick, I answered the article you put up as evidence in an edit above. To summarize, no, not every single scientist read every word, but the majority of the panel did approve the overall conclusions (an unprecedented happening in the annals of science). I'll watch your movie when you've read at least one chapter of the IPCC report (try the one on greenhouse gases) and explained why it's false.

As for the whole glaciation/little ice age thing. Yes, climate has changed in the past and will change in the future, that is nothing new. But the rate of change is new. The fact that there are climate cycles and non-human induced changes does not negate the fact that human actions are changing the climate at a rapid pace.

As for methane. Yes, it is a potent greenhouse gas. However, we are not taking a reservoir of methane that has been trapped in deep storage within the earth for millions of years and adding it to the atmosphere, so the impact of even six billion daily farts is not much of a concern compared with the burning of fossil fuels.

Edit: Nick, as for what caused the other effects. You tell me. I'll help you out: try looking up Milankovitch Cycles for a start. For an engineer, Milankovitch was a pretty smart dude.

@Irish: Touche on the plate tectonics, but there's nothing we can do to prevent earthquakes at the moment, there are things we can do to at least slow the impacts of climate change.

As for plants, what they can absorb is quite limited, and it is in fact ocean plants that have been taking up most of what we're putting out. Their capacity is equally limited by their physiology. The issue is that you can't really use a short term storage vehicle like plants to take up what you release from long term geologic storage.

As for your disagreement with Mann, I wonder upon what it is based, were you unhappy with the manner in which he calculated his EOFs? Or was their another reason.

As for any other messages posted while I was writing this. I'll get back to you after I've had my coffee.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:00 pm

Magnolia wrote:

@Nick, I answered the article you put up as evidence in an edit above.

I did not post that as evidence. I'm not going to try to prove a negative as you demanding that is a very lazy way to argue a point.

What I'm doing instead is discrediting that report.

If "the majority" of them agree, and it is all undeniably true, then why would they need to submit fraudulent credits?

EDIT: In regard to the rate of change, that's just silly. If it was heating up now as much as it did during the transition out of the ice age, we'd all be dead.

EDIT:

Magnolia wrote:

Nick, as for what caused the other effects.

It was a hypothetical question. I know what caused the other shifts because it's the same elements that are causing this shift, and the same elements that cause every other shift.

Get over it. People are not powerful enough to destroy the climate of the Earth.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 18 Feb 2009 Posts: 29

So one article discredits an entire report? Evidence that does nothing more than describe the normal working processes of scientists discredits the report?

I'm not asking you to "prove a negative" I'm asking you to provide a credible alternative hypothesis backed up by similarly extensive evidence. Again, that is was what scientists do. They don't just stand up and say "You're wrong because I said so". They offer an alternative hypothesis, investigate it thoroughly and are willing to admit they're wrong if indeed they are wrong.

As for the last part of your statement, the human race didn't die out during the transition from the Ice Age, so I'm not sure what you mean, But, yes, as the earth is now warming at a much more rapid pace than it did then (over hundreds of years and not thousands) we are in for a lot of trouble.

Finally, I'm disappointed that no one answered my question about the amount of evidence they seek for the efficacy of medical treatments before they submit to ithem. It both amuses and saddens me that people who think one statement favorable to their opinion can negate an entire body of scientific work with which they do not wish to agree, will let science in other areas of their lives pass with no questions whatsoever.

Edit: Actually, it's largely shifts in earth's orbit that force changes. And you are right, we can't "destroy" the climate. But we can alter it in ways that will make life on this planet rather less pleasant than it is today. We can't destroy all the water on the earth either, but we could poison it and make it undrinkable if we tried hard enough.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:14 pm

The Martian atmosphere is 95% CO2. Then why is Mars a lot colder than Earth?

Edit: Embarassed

I have to admit I am anti-ecologist. The amount of methane exiting my anus is higher than average. My diet must be the culprit.
I enjoy milk, yoghurt, eggs and BEANS.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 18 Feb 2009 Posts: 29

Mars is a hell of a lot farther from the sun than Earth. With the exception of some internal radiation from the core, all the earth's heat comes from the sun. All the CO2 in the world isn't going to keep you warm if there isn't much solar radiation to be trapped in the first place.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:34 pm

50% farther, on average. 225 million kilometers vs. 150.
Solar constant on Mars is about half of Earth's.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:38 pm

Awesome thread. You do all realise that we're all doomed. The cancer of our mother Earth is the human infestation that infects the once sustainable ecosystem. As soon as we get rid of those parasitic humans, nature will restore itself.

Personally I think we should be able to solve the Global Warming concerns within this thread alone. Once we've figured out who is to blame the Eater mods (and Craig) will seek out and destroy them restoring balance to the universe.

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:51 pm

My brain is hurting and I might have to lie down. Smile

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:57 pm

/\/\/\ It's probably from blasting down the interstate at a high rate of <strike>fuel consumption</strike> speed in your SS. Very Happy

Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:26 am

^^^

7 miles to the gallon. Shocked

Not quite a Newb Joined: 18 Feb 2009 Posts: 29

Nurse Nasty wrote:

Once we've figured out who is to blame the Eater mods (and Craig) will seek out and destroy them restoring balance to the universe.

But I thought the Eater mods were to blame for Global Warming (and for Craig)?

At least, I kind of remember reading that on some other site a while back.

Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:29 am

Nah... Blame some politics and economics leaders.
They love oil so much.

Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:31 am

^ Sure. Why not. We get blamed for everyone else's screw-ups. Might as well throw another one at us.

Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:36 am

Gosh, isn't it hot in here?

Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 1:14 am

Quote:

People are not powerful enough to destroy the climate of the Earth.

Famous last words?

We might not be able to destroy Earth's climate, but I'll bet we could mess it up for a good while if we put our minds to it. If not with SUVs, then at least with a nice little nuclear winter.

I'm powerful enough to destroy the Earth's climate. I'm an Eater mod: we do that kind of stuff all the time.

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