Global warming and politics

Non-car discussion, now for everyone
kevm14
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Re: Global warming and politics

Post by kevm14 »

billgiacheri wrote:I wasn't going to touch this thread... Then this came up on MSN:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topsto ... spartanntp
My major problem is if they were wrong about the last 20 years (which they were, over and over again), why the hell should I believe what they say for the next 80?
bill25
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Re: Global warming and politics

Post by bill25 »

Also, it seems like you are doing what you have posted about previously: Looking at content that sides with your belief rather than a range of content from different angles.

The problem is that there are a lot of variables, and little actual information except that the North Pole is melting.

I have seen interesting info with actual data like, when large volcanoes erupt, sending ash into the stratosphere, the earth cooled 2 degrees. This was in Super Freakanomics. There were some cool simple weather mitigations discussed in that book that I highly recommend reading. It is from a group of Ex-Microsoft higher ups and other big companies. Interesting non-political discussions.
kevm14
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Re: Global warming and politics

Post by kevm14 »

billgiacheri wrote:I don't really care what is causing the "extreme weather" and overall warming
Some facts I've run into on this:
- Our extreme weather is not really happening as I pointed out in a previous post
- Our mean global temp is fully within the expectation of the normal course of climate change as it has been unfolding over the course of this planet
- Warmer and more atmospheric CO2 would actually be good, not bad
EDIT for more facts:
- Humans (like industrial byproducts, cars, planes, etc.) are responsible for something around 7% of the CO2 in the atmosphere (and remember CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas to begin with). Volcanos, animals, bacteria, dying vegetation and....the oceans produce many times more.
billgiacheri wrote:but it seems like we should figure out if we can mitigate the impact.
It would be misguided or even irresponsible to enact draconian economical measures if A) what is happening isn't actually bad and B) we weren't causing most of it anyway.
Overpopulation is probably more of a problem than anything.
This is true though with the advent of the GMO we've managed to feed a hell of a lot more people than we thought we could. So that's something.
Last edited by kevm14 on Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Added a fact
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Global warming and politics

Post by kevm14 »

billgiacheri wrote:Also, it seems like you are doing what you have posted about previously: Looking at content that sides with your belief rather than a range of content from different angles.
Fair point - I should do that. However I consider my entire life to this point a giant brainwashing exercise (whether intentional or ignorant) so I feel I can focus on a counter-argument instead. I get additional license when the response is that debate is unacceptable.
EDIT: And in general, there seems to be no shortage of people that are AGW supporters, so that side seems plenty well represented.
The problem is that there are a lot of variables, and little actual information except that the North Pole is melting.
Yet the Antarctic is actually gaining substantial amounts of ice.
Last edited by kevm14 on Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:31 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Added something
bill25
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Re: Global warming and politics

Post by bill25 »

I am surprised that there wasn't anything about methane. I hear that a lot with the whole meat/cows and why you should be vegan argument for climate change.

It goes along with the overpopulation thing. Animals we eat create a lot of methane and require a lot of food and water is the argument for being vegan. (aren't vegetables mostly water?)
kevm14
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Re: Global warming and politics

Post by kevm14 »

billgiacheri wrote:I am surprised that there wasn't anything about methane. I hear that a lot with the whole meat/cows and why you should be vegan argument for climate change.

It goes along with the overpopulation thing. Animals we eat create a lot of methane and require a lot of food and water is the argument for being vegan. (aren't vegetables mostly water?)
Yeah I remember learning methane was orders of magnitude more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Then again, so is WATER.
kevm14
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Re: Global warming and politics

Post by kevm14 »

Good quote from the movie that I have been saying for years and years:
Few things annoy me more than to hear people taking about carbon dioxide as being a pollutant. You're made of CO2, I'm made of CO2. CO2 is how living things grow.
bill25
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Re: Global warming and politics

Post by bill25 »

It would be misguided or even irresponsible to enact draconian economical measures if A) what is happening isn't actually bad
The solution might not be economic. You should really check out Super Freakanomics.

B) we weren't causing most of it anyway.
This doesn't matter. If an asteroid was headed directly at earth and we were all going to die if we didn't do something about it, does it matter that we didn't cause the asteroid?

There is a good chance we aren't causing the problem... We know about the Ice Age and Ice bridge and all that, and there were no cars or millions of cows to cause that to melt.

I think that if it is a problem, we should try to do something about it, but that research needs to be solid, not political.
kevm14
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Re: Global warming and politics

Post by kevm14 »

There is no evidence to suggest that anything even remotely as severe as an asteroid is going to happen from this cyclical warming/cooling. It's been happening for forever and there are strong arguments to suggest that humanity actually thrives in the warmer periods anyway. And this is not as warm as it has been (by degrees, not tenths of a degree), even with human populations. Doesn't it seem just a little suspicious that no one can seem to pinpoint what the "optimum" conditions even are? It's a completely meaningless and arbitrary question, and just as arbitrary as saying "another 0.8 degree would be catastrophic." If we had to change on the order of a degree, we would be far better off warmer, rather than cooler.
kevm14
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Re: Global warming and politics

Post by kevm14 »

kevm14 wrote:Point 1 (starting around 17 minutes): using weather balloon data and satellite data we can see that the troposphere is not warm as we would expect if the greenhouse effect were responsible for the slight warming since 1940

Point 2 (around 22 minutes): Temp rise happens first, then hundreds of years later, CO2 rises. There's that correlation vs causation thing.
Point 3 (around 29 minutes): It's the sun, stupid. Or, I should say, it's the clouds, stupid. I have never heard this specific explanation before and it is eye opening.

They show how a much better correlation than CO2 to global mean temperature, is solar activity. Everyone thinks of the sun as constant but it is entirely dynamic and there was a quote in this segment that went something like "we are essentially in the atmosphere of the sun," referring to solar wind and so on. This is great. Is it automatically correct because it's not CO2? No, but where's the conversation on this? Where's the research funding? Oh I know, because we can't tax the sun.

Damn, the next session gets very interesting as to the root of all of this in the 70s with Margaret Thatcher, who was trying to push nuclear power. This story needs to be told to more people. It's recent history even.

At 44 minutes, we get into the whole anti-capitalism aspect of this, which was a great thing to get behind when the Berlin wall fell and activists needed something new to get behind to serve their agenda. Yeah for real.

At 46 minutes, shit gets real when the money really started flowing. Go figure.

Man we pissed away so many billions on inaccurate computer models. Inaccurate because they were setup to ascribe causation to something that isn't actually causal. Bingo.
All models assume that man-made CO2 is the cause of climate change, rather than the sun, or the clouds.
The analogy I use is like, my car is not running very well, so I'm going to ignore the engine, which is the sun, and I'm going to ignore the transmission, which is the water vapor. And I'm going to look at one nut on the right rear wheel, which is the human-produced CO2. The science is that bad.
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