The Climate Change Thread

The ones I have posted links to in numerous previous posts about increasing extreme weather events (no difference compared to historical records), increased starvation in Africa due to desertification (actually a greening of the relevant parts of Africa and better crop yields), ongoing temperature rises as co2 increases (but pretty flat for about 10 or 12 years now, the "travesty" referred to in that famous email), sea level not rising any more sharply than it has historically, no impacts on precipiatation, all the bunk about glaciers being constantly contradicted and contradictory, the threat to animals like Polar Bears. Should I go on?

That's an interesting raft. I'm happy to go through each one when I get the time. If you can edit the post with direct/or some kind of source for each one that will make it easier.

At the end we can review what the implications are on the field of climate science.

Agreed, a good list of questions. Bru, got some time?

I don't want to distract Bru from his task, but while we're waiting, here's a story (and more importantly, a PDF link) on the climate science consensus.

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/04/26/3489290.htm

Can we put the "consensus" question to bed now?

I have, in previous posts, provided links and information and charts and graphs and analysis. I'd love to, but I don't have the time to do it. If you're that interested, search posts by me in this thread. It's all there.

Hey what if it's not because of us, but we could reduce it anyway?

I think you have done this 3 times now. You seem to think you can make whatever claims you like and brush off any requests for evidence with "i posted it a few pages back". So before any of us are able to question your claims, first we must trawl through every single word you've typed in this entire thread!

The problem is, it's gotten to the point where we cannot possibly know what you are talking about unless we see some sources. "all the bunk about glaciers being constantly contradicted" - what is "all the stuff" there is an entire section of scientific literiture on glaciers, how is any onlooker supposed to know what you are on about here?

If you are really struggling for time, just stop making so many claims in this thread until you can expand a little more on them. I tried going through the list of claims you just wrote, but had to stop because I just had no idea what I was replying too.

Why is psychology a science? Is sociology a science?
I wonder if there is a more fundamental problem here: if psychology qualifies as science it's no wonder opinion on AGW divides the world.



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Interesting (IMO) this is written by the author of the skeptical science blog:
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/04/26/3489290.htm


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Bru, stop replying to Karl, concentrate on Gnostic.

So why do I post things if you either don't read them or want me to post them again later on? I'm not brushing anything off. I'm just refusing to have the same argument 3 times because someone forgot or did not read an earlier post.

I was told, possibly by you, when I first wandered into this thread to go and read what came previously before I waded into territory that had already been covered. I did that. How is this any different? No-one gave me a nice potted summary of their previously stated positions with a neat list of resources and links.

In an otherwise compelling article this quote illustrates my concern about the inability of the scientifically astute to use the language to communicate with the precision that the argument deserves and requires: be it accurate or otherwise, the quote does not actually convey a meaningful comparison.

This is because the reader cannot understand whether the "2 Hiroshima bombs" are in addition to the heat which the earth has always "absorbed" or whether this is the new, albeit elevated, level of heat being absorbed. There is even a third legitimate interpretation which is that, until recently, in earth science terms, the earth absorbed no heat.

By intuition, or it may even be assumption, I can rule out the third interpretation. Of the remaining 2 one is meaningless to me and the other is alarming: if its in addition to it seems alarming.but that too could depend on what was the base to which these 2 "bombs" have been added.

Re-reading this thread this morning I became more convinced than ever that the problem here is one of communication. Unfortunately, I gather, those with the knowledge who might taken on board the complaint about the quality of communication are not listening.

Look, I cannot possibly understand what you are writing about if you don't go into more detail, there is so much in here on glaciers I can't dissect which discussion you are referring to. Since when is asking for sources a crime?

Next time you do this I may as well say "don't listen to Karl I've refuted what he has said many times before, those posts were probably on that list". But of course I wouldn't because that's not logical, just like what you are doing here isn't.


..

Most of this is to do with politics which I'm not that focused in this thread (i'm bored to death of the carbon tax really), but still interesting thoughts to take on board I guess.

I don't think anyone is claiming we should only slow co2. But it appears to be the Greenhouse Gas we need to focus on first, if we are to prevent major damage to the eco system in the next few centuries. If we did get our co2 pollution levels back to pre-industrial levels there would still be other pollutants in the air, but it would have nothing like the effect co2 has had on the climate in the last 50 years.

Having never lived there I wouldn't know, but countries like Sweden appear to have been taxing sulfur pollution along with co2 for decades now. Sulfur causes acid rain or something. So this concept of using market mechanisms to get rid of pollution in order to fix important issues isn't new at all. Hence why the government would see it as an easy way to get emissions down, or stop them rising. And it can be applied to all harmful pollutants over time.

I'm not familiar with this idea. Are you saying we should do the maths to check if wind turbines cause more net emissions than they save? Agreed it's definitely something for physicists to look at.

I'm not sure this has much to do with anyone's views on climate science. I don't see a big problem with rising temps in crowded cities, we can cope with that (it doesn't rise the global temperatures). It's changes to the eco-system which are most worrying. If we see more heat waves they will wipe out crops. Making changes to the ocean might cause problems.

I don't have the data on me, but I'm pretty sure more "urbanized" cities are generally much more energy efficient, polluting less as a result. (which helps out with the major goal of slowing a rise in the greenhouse effect)

I wish we addressed as well. Much more effective way of curbing emissions but too much work for lazy politicians.

Even if we did this though, I still think we should be aiming to reduce pollution locally.

The carbon tax isn't ideal, but it's the only legislation we are going to get through anytime soon to address this issue of high co2 pollution (And in the future it can easily be applied to other greenhouse gases. ). I think it's a big stretch to say it "wont address this problem". I don't agree with a lot of the policy in this area as well, but at the moment I'd support it just to see some sort of cap put on the pollution levels.

If people oppose the carbon tax in favor of better policy, I generally agree with them. But it's not that bad of an idea to start off with IMO. My only real disagreement is with the idea we should do absolutely nothing because we are a small country (which is a view put forward by a lot of people in oz)

I only replied because I don't think anyone is really ignoring those issues. I'm not keen on discussing particular carbon taxes all over again though. Everyone else can have the last word on that.

and it looks like an excellent model from which to draw support:

http://www.economicinstruments.com/index.php/air-quality/article/74-

So Sweden taxes suflur and, in consequence, it is left with residual oil in which the sulfur content is very high.so it ships it off to another part of the world: all better!
The article also points out that Sweden's efforts to address SO2 and CO2 are thwarted by its neighbours - another insight into the problem with taxing CO2 in Australia when most of the rest of the world is not doing it.

there always has and always will be the same amount of carbon dioxide on earth..it goes in a cycle so no you can't control it

australia not caring about what other countries are doing..australia is the world's bitch..we have illegal immigrants forced on us, we have resources raped by china, other countries by our land, and you think that we could be independent and ignor what other countries doing? furthermore look at australia's contribution of carbon dioxide, it's quite low...the rest of the world is laughing at what a joke this country is becoming and unfortunately i'm with them