Global Warming?

[Rob-D]

34 years is not even a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Accurate weather records only go back 150 years or so...again, a very small snapshot.
Yes, during that time the average temperature has been climbing, but how many times over the past however many millenia has the climate varied by similar or greater amounts? Witness the ice ages.

You have to look at climate changes over tens of thousands of years, and even then due to lack of record keeping for much of the world it's not going to tell you much.

I addressed this before, several factors effect this. First, we are not capable of going back in time and measuring temperature to the degree we can today, thus the best we can is observe trends.
Secondly, we have been living in a catalytic period since the Industrial Revolution. We do not know if, one, climate is changing on its own, two, it is not changing and we are making it change and, three, we do not know if it is changing and we are adding to that change. Only time will tell.

What we do know is that we are affecting this planet and adversely, that is the germane issue. CC is a 'red herring' used by clever people to obscure the real issues and apparently it is working and working well.

We simply can't go on at this rate or as everyone's favorite enemy called it an "Inconvenient Truth". Whether we agree with his hypothesis or not it is very inconvenient that we have to change our abusive ways.

Rob

 

[patrick_g]

Everyone has a different idea of what is prudent. NOAA guys at Norman, OK, the severe weather experts, say that in tornado alley the odds of a residential structure being significantly damaged by tornado (enough damage to be life threatening) is on the order of once in 4000 years.

Some thoughts:

1. What if this is your year?"
2. Although unlikely, what is the downside if this is your year and you choose to not prepare or react to any warning signs?
3. What happens if you build a safe room and you are not hit by a tornado?

Ignoring any grandiose plans for seeding the clouds or bombing volcanoes to trigger an eruption to kick up dust to counter WARMING or similar, what is the down side for being cautious as regards the potential for man to mess with the climate? What are we afraid of, clean air? Reduced cases of asthma? What is being suggested that is a bad idea as regards a cleaner and healthier planetary environment?

There are plenty of people who just don't care if other peoples kids have to live in a dirty deteriorating environment, especially if changing their ways had a cost. By choosing to believe, preach, and proselytize rabidly against any possibility of man making a negative impact you gain freedom to pollute. If there were absolute unquestionable proof that it was not only not happening but that it was impossible for it to happen still most actions nominated for "saving the climate" will in fact help restore a cleaner healthier environment.

To a degree I'm an agnostic on climate change and man caused climate change. If not agnostic I'm just a little skeptical and want to see reasonable proof, untainted by the golden rule where he who has the gold makes the rule as when a Detroit consortium hired scientists to study smog in the LA basin decades ago and to no one's surprise determined it was not automobiles. Every other study pinned the majority on cars but those studies were not financed via the big 3 automakers.

In the meantime I think there should be concern that some of the "proof" or "alarm bells" are not false alarms and we need to conduct ourselves such that we don't make a situation worse before we know how to fix it if the jury comes back with an indictment.

Two scouts come back and one says the bridge isn't safe for heavily loaded wagons and the other says although damaged it is usable with heavy wagons. A prudent wagon master doesn't ride the first heavily laden wagon. The prudent wagon master might send lighter wagons and observe. To just ignore the one scout is not prudent.

Pat

 

[powerpace]

34 years is not even a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Accurate weather records only go back 150 years or so...again, a very small snapshot.
Yes, during that time the average temperature has been climbing, but how many times over the past however many millenia has the climate varied by similar or greater amounts? Witness the ice ages.

You have to look at climate changes over tens of thousands of years, and even then due to lack of record keeping for much of the world it's not going to tell you much.

Evolutionary terms should probably read Geological terms in the context of the discussion. In my opinion.
You need to look back at my posts on climate change. Exactly what I've been saying for about two years on here and since 1968. USMC Weather Forecaster. 1968-1975.

 

[EE_Bota]

First, you disputed my definition, I showed that it is a valid definition of evolution.

Let me recall what transpired, here is what I said:

"Evolution is a process of development from a simple to a complex organism. Evolution is science, science doesn't weight whether things matter.

Does it matter to science that gravity exists? No."


The point I made is that evolution is science and science doesn't care, my definition of evolution was only introduced to show that science is not capable of caring, thus the statement that followed, "science does not weight whether things 'matter'".
So why you said,"Let's skip the one that is about what we were actually discussing" is not correct because this is exactly what we were discussing and that was whether science could care.

Secondly, I don't care for anthropomorphisms, like Dawkins' "selfish genes" because they infer that science is capable of 'feelings' and thus compassion. A very clever ploy by the atheist Dawkins, science is not capable of compassion, love or agape'. It's not that I'm a religious fanatic for I am surely not but let's "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's".

As far as your statement:

"Evolution doesn't care about vegetarian diets or meat diets. Evolution cares about propagating genes. If a pregnant woman in hard times has a strange craving to eat earth worms, that would be a fine thing."

Evolution doesn't care BUT evolution is affected by diet because evolution is affected by the environment the species exists in. The period of time that a species adapts to its environment may be tens of thousands of years but it is still affected and it still adapts.

A starving man in the wilderness might eat raw meat to survive AND it might make him sick because his body is no longer capable, after millenniums of time, of eating and digesting that raw meat. He might even have a craving for something that his physiology can not digest and indeed, again, it might make him sick because of his physiological change over time.

So the woman eating worms may or may not be a fine thing but more importantly it is less about evolution and more about Abe Maslow's human needs and the priority of those needs.

Rob

Rob, you're even more wrong than ever..

Unfortunately, though (and seriously too) my uncle RC has passed, and I won't have very much time to talk this weekend. We did beat it around pretty good, but I have to go do other stuff this weekend. I'll be a pall bearer. My Mom seems to be taking it pretty well, and just saw her brother yesterday, so it was not completely unexpected. He was a good man, a hard working man, and lived to 92. Sometime between a few minutes from now to a few decades from now, I hope to see him again.

 

[Rob-D]

Rob, you're even more wrong than ever..

Unfortunately, though (and seriously too) my uncle RC has passed, and I won't have very much time to talk this weekend. We did beat it around pretty good, but I have to go do other stuff this weekend. I'll be a pall bearer. My Mom seems to be taking it pretty well, and just saw her brother yesterday, so it was not completely unexpected. He was a good man, a hard working man, and lived to 92. Sometime between a few minutes from now to a few decades from now, I hope to see him again.

My condolences go out to you and yours.
Pax vobiscum,
Rob

 

[Rob-D]

Everyone has a different idea of what is prudent. NOAA guys at Norman, OK, the severe weather experts, say that in tornado alley the odds of a residential structure being significantly damaged by tornado (enough damage to be life threatening) is on the order of once in 4000 years.

Some thoughts:

1. What if this is your year?"
2. Although unlikely, what is the downside if this is your year and you choose to not prepare or react to any warning signs?
3. What happens if you build a safe room and you are not hit by a tornado?

Ignoring any grandiose plans for seeding the clouds or bombing volcanoes to trigger an eruption to kick up dust to counter WARMING or similar, what is the down side for being cautious as regards the potential for man to mess with the climate? What are we afraid of, clean air? Reduced cases of asthma? What is being suggested that is a bad idea as regards a cleaner and healthier planetary environment?

There are plenty of people who just don't care if other peoples kids have to live in a dirty deteriorating environment, especially if changing their ways had a cost. By choosing to believe, preach, and proselytize rabidly against any possibility of man making a negative impact you gain freedom to pollute. If there were absolute unquestionable proof that it was not only not happening but that it was impossible for it to happen still most actions nominated for "saving the climate" will in fact help restore a cleaner healthier environment.

To a degree I'm an agnostic on climate change and man caused climate change. If not agnostic I'm just a little skeptical and want to see reasonable proof, untainted by the golden rule where he who has the gold makes the rule as when a Detroit consortium hired scientists to study smog in the LA basin decades ago and to no one's surprise determined it was not automobiles. Every other study pinned the majority on cars but those studies were not financed via the big 3 automakers.

In the meantime I think there should be concern that some of the "proof" or "alarm bells" are not false alarms and we need to conduct ourselves such that we don't make a situation worse before we know how to fix it if the jury comes back with an indictment.

Two scouts come back and one says the bridge isn't safe for heavily loaded wagons and the other says although damaged it is usable with heavy wagons. A prudent wagon master doesn't ride the first heavily laden wagon. The prudent wagon master might send lighter wagons and observe. To just ignore the one scout is not prudent.

Pat

Pat,
I enjoyed that!

Rob

 

[mostly_gas]

But to borrow Pat story, all we have been told is the bridge MIGHT be damaged. Hard numbers have been difficult if not impossible for man's contribution to the warming. I find that interesting consider the hype that has been used for the last 30 years. Also makes it difficult to come up with a plan with measurable objectives. Don't have to be a scientist to know how well a plan works without measurable objectives.

 

[patrick_g]

We live in an imperfect world populated by imperfect people with an imperfect view and sense of the world.

It is the height of folly to demand perfection in quantifying a risk before paying any heed.

I learned a long time ago that when you are approaching an uncontrolled intersection out in the country and notice another vehicle also approaching it on the cross street (or a train approaching the crossing in front of you), to take notice of some feature in your car (dead bug on windshield, corner of outside mirror, or whatever) in line with the other vehicle.

If as you both continue toward the intersection this alignment with the bug guts or whatever does not change then you will certainly collide. As a practical matter you don't use a theodolite, pelorus, or other precision instrument and worry about arc minutes and tenths. Exact measurements are not needed to recognize a clear and present danger. If it looks like it will be fairly close then you make a significant change in your speed and continue to monitor the situation. A prudent driver would consider slowing but in some instances speeding up and continuing to monitor might make good sense. Slowing is undeniably a safe alternative. Counting on the "car on the right has right of way" rule to "fix" the situation can get you dead.

Mans effect on environment and climate need not be quantified to an arbitrary level of perfection and repeatability before recognizing potential dangers that might require consideration.

Take for example the relationship between smoking and diseases such as lung cancer. There are still skeptics who claim the relationship is not suitably established because of the number of smokers without cancer. Also the exact consumption of cigarettes required to cause cancer can't be established so the "science" isn't reliable or repeatable, therefore it is not believable.

Demanding perfection before believing is just another form of denial, whistling in the dark, pretending everything will be OK because it has been OK.

And now for something completely different...

Meat eating behind evolutionary success of humankind, global population spread, study suggests

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 07:55 AM PDT

Carnivory is behind the evolutionary success of humankind. When early humans started to eat meat and eventually hunt, their new, higher-quality diet meant that women could wean their children earlier. Women could then give birth to more children during their reproductive life, which is a possible contribution to the population gradually spreading over the world. The connection between eating meat and a faster weaning process is shown by a research group from Sweden, which compared close to 70 mammalian species and found clear patterns.

Accelerating climate change exerts strong pressure on Europe's mountain flora

Posted: 19 Apr 2012 11:31 AM PDT

Mountain plants across the continent are moving to higher altitudes. The new article is based on detailed surveys of 66 mountain summits in Europe. Scientists mapped all plant species at each European site in 2001 and 2008.
New study links air pollution and early death in the UK

Posted: 19 Apr 2012 10:26 AM PDT

Emissions from cars, trucks, planes and power plants cause 13,000 premature deaths in the United Kingdom each year, new research suggests.

Pat

 

[Rob-D]

And now for something completely different...

Meat eating behind evolutionary success of humankind, global population spread, study suggests

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 07:55 AM PDT

Carnivory is behind the evolutionary success of humankind. When early humans started to eat meat and eventually hunt, their new, higher-quality diet meant that women could wean their children earlier. Women could then give birth to more children during their reproductive life, which is a possible contribution to the population gradually spreading over the world. The connection between eating meat and a faster weaning process is shown by a research group from Sweden, which compared close to 70 mammalian species and found clear patterns.

Pat

Pat,
I'd like to see the link for this.

"which is a possible contribution to the population gradually spreading over the world."

I'd like to see how they came up with this, I think man has populated the globe out of necessity. Populations grow logarithmically regardless how much meat they consume and many countries eat very little if any meat.

Meat is one of the world's most environmentally destructive activities. It had been linked to human health issues and energy burdens every country that eats it to any degree.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?pagewanted=all

"Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world痴 tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country痴 rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost."

Rob

 

[patrick_g]

I previously posted, I thought the source of all similar looking announcements.

It is ScienceDaily. You can subscribe and receive daily blurbs of the latest stuff on many many topics. I try to only post here what is either germane or sure to hit Rob's hot button. See our previous recent exchange.

Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology


The evolution/meat thing is here:

Meat eating behind evolutionary success of humankind, global population spread, study suggests

This free service provides a daily dose of the latest things across most of the scientific publishing spectrum. Then if interested you can read their whole write up or go to their source. They don't have a dog in any fight and don't care whose ox is gored, they just report what they can find, usually from relatively reliable sources NOT the "National Enquirer" sort of pubs.

Exercise care. You will be entering a science zone where your favorite dogma may be run down by their karma.

Pat