Brown clashes with Orange!!

CT_Tree_Guy · Jan 17, 2006

I'll just be glad if they can get tomorrow's forecast right and less worried about the 1000 year forecast. 

I would like to suggest a subtle but important difference between "worry" and "concern". I would also like to express some measure of frustration that I feel when I encounter resistance to the idea of taking prudent actions that might possibly mitigate or avoid future catastrophe.

There are many complicated issues facing this world, and I think that we are best served to consider them rationally and soberly, rather than choosing to ignore them.

I really admire Abraham Lincoln, he sure had many great quotes. Here's one I just heard yesterday: "He who does not become wiser each day is a fool". I just don't think it takes very much wisdom to deny that a problem exists, if in fact it does.

The truth is out there; let's find it.

Amontilado · Jan 18, 2006

There are a whole bunch of things which have an effect on our weather, ranging from solar output (including solar flares) to natural producters of greenhouse gasses(cows are sited as one of the biggest producers of methane) to volcanic eruptions (which alter how much energy makes it into the system from the sun). any little change changes the whole shebang. Then there are cyclic changes in the high/low pressure systems' location(it makes my head hurt trying to keep track of every oscillation). Haven't had a chance to dig into the scientific evidence of global warming, but as a scientist, I'm sceptical of any "claim" until I can see the evidence. As the saying goes, "there's lies, then there's d*** lies, then there is statistics".

Steve

mwechtal · Jan 18, 2006

OK, so here's the thing. I'm not saying we have or don't have global warming. We don't have accurate enough data to tell. Ever think about where all these weather stations that measure the temperature are located? A large number are at airports. Airports are generally near citys, which expand and gradually encircle the airport. More blacktop and more buildings means the temperature in the whole area averages slightly warmer. Now we have to try to correct the temperatures back to whatever they would have been before the area was built up. OK, that addresses the accuracy. Now we know that we have temperature cycles, short term, long term, decades, centuries, thousands of years, millions of years. So, if we had a few million years of daily (OK, at least weekly) data from thousands of stations uniformly spread across the world that were always in wilderness areas, then we would know. There also has to be a calibration program to ensure accurate measurements. Until then anything anyone publishes is a theory, an opinion, or worse, a guess. For all we know we could be headed into an ice age, and only pumping out more greenhouse gasses will save us.

I do think we are putting too much junk into the air and water though, but it seems MUCH better than even 20 years ago. That's an opinion by the way, I don't have the data.

Mike - who analyzes data for a living and would get fired for such a sloppy analysis.

inveresk · Jan 18, 2006

Ice caps are melting, holes in the ozone layer are increasing, sea temperatures are rising, weather patterns becoming amplified, and none of it near airports.

I don't think there is now any dispute that we have global warming and that there are going to be fairly serious consequences as a result. The argument is about the cause, whether global warming is caused by man or mainly by other factors - sunspots, volcanoes, etc. - such as have been offered as an explanation here.

If it's not man made, all we can do is accept whatever providence has in store for us and go about our lives. But if it is man made, then we have a duty to act, painful as that process might be.

There are two camps taking different position about whether man is responsible. The first camp led to the Kyoto protocol which was signed, I believe, by all but two of the countries in the west and by several from east europe and asia. That camp believes the scientific evidence is pretty much beyond controversy and trusts the proof that their scientists have delivered. The second camp says we don't have enough evidence, that the jury is out, that there might be other causes that would render any painful action we take futile and before we take any painful medicine, we need more proof.

We've seen this two camp scenario before. Big tobacco refuted the apparent incontrovertible causal link between smoking and cancer for the same reasons that many are denying man's impact on global warming. Because it would hit their pockets. When they did finally admit it, it was too late for millions who already had cancer or other tobacco related illnesses.

So, I believe we have to look at those dissenting voices in the global warming argument and try to assess whether they're coming from the same place that big tobacco was. I'm pretty much satisfied that many of the pressure groups set up to argue against man taking action to reduce his impact on the environment have been established by oil, gas and power companies who have a vested interest in retaining the status quo because to do otherwise will hit there profits hard.

Even Herman Daly, World Bank economist and as hardened a capitalist as one can find, has gone on record as saying we're treating the planet as if it were a business in liquidation. If he's persuaded, along with the great majority of political and authoritative scientific expertise in the west, then I'm persuaded because this is one issue about which we dare not be wrong.

CT_Tree_Guy · Jan 18, 2006

OK, that addresses the accuracy. 

I really don't think that we can hope to compete with supercomputers performing god knows how many millions or billions of instructions per second trying to figure out whether or not we should try to reduce our output of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. I think there comes a point at which one might be well served to say, "You know what? I'm going to go with the consensus of the world's top scientists, since they know a lot more than I do".

Yes, liars love statistics, but science is not about lying, it's about arriving at the truth. When you learn that the earth's mean temperature rose 1 degree C. in the last 100 years, and is projected to rise 4.5 degrees C. in the next 100 years, a rate of increase which I believe is unprecedented in the last several million years, you might begin to think that something just might be going on. Denial is not the answer; in fact, it is a very large part of the problem.

Inveresk, that was one heck of a post. It reminds me of some of my smoker friends who can somehow manage to look me straight in the eye and tell me that they don't think smoking is bad for them. Anecdotal evidence abounds. "My Uncle Fred smoked 4 packs a day, drank like a fish, and ran with scissors, and he lived to be 103 years old". Give me a break. Better yet, give the planet a break; it could use one.

Holzster · Jan 18, 2006

Can you send some of that rain down here?

ToadHill · Jan 19, 2006

I can remember 40 years ago in High School they talked about the return of the ice age. To every time there is a season.

Egon · Jan 19, 2006

An interesting site. Takes a while to read.

Me - I'm all for a non poluting, clean air, clean water earth.

As to global warming everyone has their own opinion and are entilled to it. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

web page

Please note: I have neither the education or intelligence to make an acurate decission based on pure scientific data! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Wannafish · Jan 19, 2006

(
An interesting site. Takes a while to read.

Me - I'm all for a non poluting, clean air, clean water earth.

As to global warming everyone has their own opinion and are entilled to it. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Egon - I agree!
I do find it odd though that NASA has data showing Mars atmosphere warming by the same percentage as the earth's. Depending on which side of the fence I were to stand, I could say we earthlings are causing Mars global warming /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
web page

Please note: I have neither the education or intelligence to make an acurate decission based on pure scientific data! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif )

BB_TX · Jan 19, 2006

Very interesting web site. No doubt that we have an extensive pollution problem that needs to be addressed world wide. However, this web site seems to indicate we are in a normal climatic cycle that has been repeated many times over the millenium.
Depending on the year, heavy rains and flooding, drought, heavy snow, extreme cold, extreme heat, hurricanes, tornados etc have all been blamed on environmental upsets caused by global warming. As previously mentioned, statistics is a tool easily misused by propagandists.