oh quit blaming El Nino and Global Warming on Natural Occurances you can't explain.

I live in Canada and it isnt getting any warmer.

We see footage of ice melting and shifting, but this is a yearly thing.. one thing you can see by monitoring temperatures at the polar ice caps is that they shift noticably every year.

Ive been saying this to people for roughly two years, that our polar ice caps are shifting and only recently have scientists been backing me up on this.

Global warming has nothing to do with El Nino. El Nino is when the currents in the pacific ociean strangly shift the opposite way. Global warming is caused by the rise in the greenhouse gasses trapping to much heat in our atmosphere. And I am blaming El Nino... because.. well... It IS because of El Nino I'm not just babbling on, it's a fact. We do have regular weather, but this year is an El Nino year.

Dago wrote:

What does it take for economists and government to realize that we need to do something ourselves? When hard proof (to them, hard proof is something like Miami sinking into the Atlantic, apparently) exists that the costs of keeping our heavy greenhouse gas emissions is more than reducing them...

Thank you for this information! It seems like governments induce wars to make people stop thinking about nature and the environment, to shift away their attention from it. As you say, it's all about money in the end.

Do you have any links that I can follow to get more information and arguments against people that think it's just natural events? There are quite a few here...


/Gazoot

Dago wrote:

Some people think the recent global warming trend is a natural occurrence. I for one don't believe that. Studying environmental geography, it takes some serious reading to see why global warming is not simply a "natural occurrence" this time.

It takes some serious understanding to realize that the natural trends in question span much longer than we've been recording temperatures.

It boils down to the correlation effect.

Correlation does not prove cause and effect. This is the #1 law of statistics.

In the last 100 years, C02 and other greenhouse gases have increased in mass by a huge amount, mostly contributed from North America.

Fact: North America is a carbon sink. Much of the continent is forested, and much is farmland. More carbon dioxide is consumed by North America every year than is produced here. I wouldn't go so far as to say that trend will go on forever, but the idea that automobiles are spewing out gigantic amounts of CO₂ is a misnomer. In fact the vast majority of the CO₂ production on this continent yearly comes from wildfires. If you want to reduce CO₂ emissions in North America, the quickest and most direct route is to support policies to clear underbrush in places where fire is most likely to spread.

In the last 100 years, global temperature has also increased.

The best and most accurate estimate anyone has for overall temperature increase is half a degree (Celsius, I believe, so that's like a whole degree Fahrenheit.) Keeping in mind that our temperature measurements a century ago were not as accurate as they are now, this puts 0 change within the margin of error.

From what textbooks and experts like David Suzuki point out is that global warming is simply not a natural trend when it occurs in this kind of (extremely short) time frame, coincidentally happening when greenhouse gas emissions from our cars and factories has also increased. So, are WE causing global warming?

Like I said, and more serious scientists have been saying for some time, cars don't have the same impact at all that fire does. This is not to say we can't have an impact on the environment or even a significant one, but the evidence at hand says that cars have a smaller impact on the global environment than is often touted.

The argument against this is that there's no proof of the relationship between our emissions and the "naturally occurring" global warming that's happening. The argument for it is can we possibly ignore that and see what the consequences are?

Again I remind you that there isn't a lot of solid data on whether the warming is actually happening. Much of the support for global warming rests on junk science; it started out with someone thinking "What if CO₂ increases and locks in heat?" and then someone else digging for numbers to support the idea, and that's a bad way to run science. Much of the study has been driven by panic more than science, and it shows in the haphazardness of the results. Urban myths can run rampant in science just as in life. However for the past decade more and more scientists have been coming to the conclusion that initial fears about global warming were overblown.

Considering car emissions have become much cleaner over the past few decades, and we're constantly looking for new technologies to increase efficiency, I think we're definitely doing something about any potential threat. The real question is whether what we're doing is fast enough, which would depend on how urgent the threat of global warming really is. The data suggest that there is no urgency, but it couldn't hurt to be more efficient for safety's sake--we're doing exactly that.

What bothers me the most is that we seem to be just going along with our normal routine. Instead of playing it safe, we're taking a huge risk, and if Miami sinks underwater in the next 60 years, are we going to blame it on "naturally occurring" global warming and move on with our daily routine still?

You're making a mistake in assuming that gradual change equals none at all; remember, unless temperatures are skyrocketing up, which even the (honest) doomsayers of global warming have to admit isn't the case, warming is a gradual process too. I'd go so far as to say that if our energy technology was still stuck where it was in the 1950's, we would indeed be having a big impact on the environment and there'd be a big crisis looming over the future of our economy (bigger than there is now, that is). But I think a lot of people forget too easily that despite the recent proliferation of SUVs, we use energy overall a lot more efficiently than 50 years ago and it shows.

Changes in sea level are another misunderstood phenomenon and the best data available again shows that these aren't correlating to temperature changes as was once thought. Polar ice caps break up, sure, but that happens all the time. You'd probably have more of a case for saying that increased radiation from the ozone hole over the antarctic was causing the polar cap there to break up.

By naturally occurring phenomena, parts of New Orleans should already be underwater. The Mississippi delta struggles to change its course constantly, as do the mouths of all living rivers, and levees had to be built to prevent flooding. Similarly, rivers overflow their banks all the time in seasons of heavy rain. Flooding is nothing new to the human experience. If Miami's underwater in 60 years, it'll be a testament to the wisdom of people who didn't build on swamp.

What does it take for economists and government to realize that we need to do something ourselves? When hard proof (to them, hard proof is something like Miami sinking into the Atlantic, apparently) exists that the costs of keeping our heavy greenhouse gas emissions is more than reducing them...

You're overdramatizing; if there is a danger of temperatures and sea levels rising significantly from global warming, then existing data should already be reflecting the trend a lot more strongly. So far the best case for such a thing has been made by massaging the data; all indicators are that this is an extreme possibility at best.

To start on the road to hard proof, first we have to ditch junk science. Don't base conclusions on panic, but rather take an objective look. So far I think it has to honestly be admitted that many studies of the phenomenon have been biased one way or the other.

I'd accept good, reasoned scientific study showing a clear and irrefutable increase in temperatures correlated to increases in certain gases with a model for how much each particular gas can affect temperatures and how they interact. There must be a solid breakdown of the main sources of those gases, including natural sources like volcanos and fires. Furthermore this study should show one way or the other what the oceans are likely to do and show strong correlations between sea level and average global temperature--or at least say that no such correlation exists, which doesn't necessarily mitigate the danger of warming. (One theory about the oceans is that they'd actually go down due to an increase in air pressure. Never underestimate the power of nature to do weird and unintuitive things.) This study should have some indication of how attempts over the past few decades to improve energy efficiency have impacted the results. And there must also be a consideration of other factors that may affect temperature, including solar activity, atmospheric permeability to radiation, geomagnetic activity, and geological activity.

Such a study would be huge, and would have a lot of variables. But such is nature; what we're trying to measure is not a linear equation but a deeply interconnected system, and the panickers have focused on just one variable or a few. It's a dangerous mistake to set policy on mathematical ineptitude.

Instead, what we should be doing is studying in more depth, meanwhile pursuing wise policies that made sense all along like improving efficiency. It's highly unlikely even in a significant rise of sea levels (say a few feet) that cities like Miami would go under; more likely is that any city truly in danger would be protected by dikes and levees before that would happen, because even a significant rise in average sea level would take time to bring about in any scenario short of a short-term global disaster (like a large meteor impact).

So like the friendly red letters say, <font color=red face="Comic Sans MS" size=+1>Don't panic!</font> We do have time to deal with and even slow or reverse the consequences if they're bad, but so far the data say that there's a mild trend at best. We aren't doing nothing about the problem, but neither should we throw everything we have at it until we know more. And we won't know more as long as people continue to treat science as a means of proving an end, instead of being open-minded to its results. I'm willing to accept that mankind is affecting the climate if honest data says so (and mind you, it takes more than one study to be convincing), especially if the alternate theories are too "out there" and make the same mistake of oversimplifying the system that so many others have.

Lummox JR

Dareb wrote:

What Im outright suggesting is that Global Warming doesnt exist.

I think there's a good chance some kind of slight warming is happening, but we know this in fact has happened to the world before. The planet seems to have temperature fluctuations on the order of several centuries, which could be due to any number of factors including a long-term biological cycle or solar activity. In fact all things considered, we're very likely due for a downturn of the temperature cycle.

However, people who tout global warming as an imminent crisis seem unwilling to even consider alternate possibilities, including that it doesn't exist as you suggest. I consider myself more of a skeptic: I outright laugh at the Chicken Littles, who should know that fads have always existed in science and this is just one of them. However, there could at least be some truth in what they're on about, and I'm willing to hear anyone out who's willing to approach their study honestly, from a truly scientific viewpoint.

Lummox JR

I don't know many SITES that have this, but I know people. Try looking up an economist named Julian Simon on google or something. I'm sure they've published some of his stuff. Try looking up anything on ecological economics. There's a lot of stuff in that field relating to this subject.

-Dagolar

Dago wrote:

Right off the bat, saying that North America as a landmass absorbs more CO2 than is given off by the population is an absolute crock of crap right there. I have repeatedly seen studies that the total amount of emissions given off by small and large automobiles alone (never mind industrial factories) overshoots all natural C02 absorption on the continent. Now, if one study says this, fine, take it with a grain of salt. Over a period of 3 years, it keeps coming up over and over by different groups. This is no longer just speculation.

I've seen numbers myself on this. I believe the figure was 1.6 billion tons produced, 1.7 consumed.

But there's simply no way that cars alone overshoot consumption, because their output is dwarfed by wildfires. (As should be obvious; controlled combustion over a limited time is nothing compared to uncontrolled combustion over a matter of weeks.) I'm talking at least an order of magnitude here.

And the "different groups" you speak of are advocates. Don't you realize there's such a thing as objective science and junk science? If you go looking for a particular set of answers, more likely than not you'll find them. Statistics are very very easily abused, because people who don't understand statistics very well are easily bamboozled by playing with the numbers. And when one person uses an inaccurate statistic, a hundred more are likely to misquote it. Bad statistics have a way of becoming gospel, and advocacy groups (for just about anything) have a strong tendency to use them long past their natural lifespan. A thing can be debunked a thousand times over and still show up in a quote.

Now if several pure research groups did wholly objective studies that came up with hard numbers, that's one thing. Still, there's no study in the world that can rationally say the output of all cars in the US is greater than that of wildfires.

Heck, even recently satellite photos showed that plant respiration has gone up. Such a thing is significant.

And I'm not saying hit the panic button. I'm saying it needs at least to be addressed, and right now the economy is more important to governments and people than the environment. That's likely to stick for quite awhile.

It's likely always going to stick. The economy is of great importance and even when it's going well people are concerned about when the lean years will come. The environment should of course be a concern as well, but it will perennially rank lower on the scale.

It takes a crisis for people to really look at it. That's really nothing new. [;(

I think near-crisis could be plenty to attract attention, but the simple problem with that is that we haven't had any. The data by and large on global warming are indeterminate, if assessed honestly. Any situation even as extreme as what you mentioned would show a clear trend in the data that objective analysis could pick out. And you have to always keep in mind the time frames under which things are measured: It's easy to say that year X was on average N% hotter than year Y, but measuring even by one decade or 5 isn't enough to show a real trend. Moreover there has to be more of a correlation than to show temperatures going up: If you're going to blame one specific thing, which as I said is a gross oversimplification in anything as complex as an ecology, the tendency of one trend to drive the other has to be crystal clear. (Specifically, net production has to be taken into account, and its trends have to sharply match, perhaps with lag, the changes in temperature.)

And by the by, yes, a few feet in rise in sea level makes a difference when you consider how many areas are at or near sea level; a few happen to be largely populated.

The sea level changing is really nothing unheard of; it's changed often enough before. If a city is built too low, it can be built up or protected. Nevertheless there's no compelling evidence that the seas are going to rise by that much. You also mistakenly think that "at sea level" is a constant term; it isn't. We have these things called tides, you see, that make the sea level go up and down on a regular basis; anything that's built at average sea level, on the beach, will be flooded daily.

Another common mistake of bad statistics is to take one of those isolated factors I mentioned out of the bigger equation, assume it has a linear (or otherwise simplistic) relationship to something else, and extrapolate. "Well if temperatures went up 3% in decade X vs. the decade before, and the sea level went up 2 inches, then in 100 years sea level will be up by almost 2 feet!" Well first off, that's still as awfully slow advance; the moon has more of an impact than that. Second, just because temperatures may change by one amount one year doesn't mean they'll do so the next. Third, the statement above (I'm not ruling out all such statements, mind you) has established no causal connection between one item and the other, nor has it established that any such relationship is linear.

This is just a smattering of what goes on to inflate statistics. Most of the time it's just simple bad judgment. But I'm all too aware that statistics supporting this theory have been abused. I'm sure statistics going the other way can be abused too, which is why following strict scientific method and statistical procedure is so important.

Lummox JR

*hasnt read 1/2 of the last 3 posts above*

-Dagolar