Climate Change -- conspiracy theory or is it time we all drive a Prius?

Quote: boymimbo

"warmers" shouldn't be complaining about the weather, you're right. .

But they do, all the time. Al Gore is a weather
fanatic. He actually picks out specific weather
events and highlights them. Of course his
followers are brain dead, so why does it matter.

Quote: boymimbo

You realize that all of the temperature data that we have for previous ice ages, etc, is from tree-ring, ice-core, and other proxy data, both of which are very reliable. Just because you don't understand the science doesn't make it false. The only way we know about the temperature record and our past is through observations beyond a thermometer.

What makes you think I don't "understand science" other than I use my own mind and don't just buy what they are selling like some horse or chicken who would believe what the pigs say because the pigs are somehow smarter than us?

I don't see much ice to core here in Pennsylvania to get data. And few trees here or anywhere are more than 150 years old to get older data from. I also know that if you take the size of tree ring growth it can be affected from many things besides simple mean temperature.

Sound like I understand things at all?

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But here's an article you can read around ice cores to help you understand the science around it. I doubt you will.

You are correct because I have read any number of articles on all of this over 25 years, this is why I am able to think of the simple questions I have and say I am not buying what they are selling.

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It's just like forensic science really. When the pathologist looks at a dead body, they can use all kinds of clues to determine method and time of death, fairly accurately. Yet no one witnessed the murder.

The difference of course is the pathologist can use a body where we know what happened and study it to draw a conclusion. They can take a body that was poisoned and compare it with one that was not poisoned (control, science, right?) and see how one input changed all the other outputs, again and again.

GW offers none of this. All it is about is a scientist guessing it was cooler years ago than it is now and getting politicians to say, "sounds bad, lets raise taxes and increase our control over the lives of others."

Quote: boymimbo

Quote: AZDuffman

Prove it! You can start by getting reliable temperature records, not tree-ring and other unverifiable guesses, from pre-1860s.

Since we can't get records that do not exist we cannot draw a conclusion. No matter how much the sheep want to believe the earth is warming changing it cannot be proved, it cannot be put against a control group, it cannot be anything a person who thinks logically can believe.

to help you understand the science around it. I doubt you will.

Or read.

This second article from the "Inconvenient Skeptic (cute) is barely intelligible and laden with vague references begging vague conclusions. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and this hardly advances your case.

Quote: AZDuffman

What makes you think I don't "understand science" other than I use my own mind and don't just buy what they are selling like some horse or chicken who would believe what the pigs say because the pigs are somehow smarter than us?

I don't see much ice to core here in Pennsylvania to get data. And few trees here or anywhere are more than 150 years old to get older data from. I also know that if you take the size of tree ring growth it can be affected from many things besides simple mean temperature.

Sound like I understand things at all?

I see where you are coming from. Your point is that because you look around you and don't see ancient evidence, there is no proof that it was cooler or warmer much in the past before thermometer readings were taken. I'll let that comment stand on its own.

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GW offers none of this. All it is about is a scientist guessing it was cooler years ago than it is now and getting politicians to say, "sounds bad, lets raise taxes and increase our control over the lives of others."

It's more than a guess. But I agree with you that the solution doesn't need to be political.

Quote: boymimbo

It's like we're the crab in the pot, slowly getting warmer and warmer, not knowing to get out before it's too late.

I like that analogy.

...because the crabs aren't the ones who are making the pot get "warmer and warmer".

Quote: boymimbo

I see where you are coming from. Your point is that because you look around you and don't see ancient evidence, there is no proof that it was cooler or warmer much in the past before thermometer readings were taken. I'll let that comment stand on its own.

No, lets not let it stand there, lets make it what I am actually saying. What I am actually saying is that there is no way to obtain accurate temperature readings from pre-1860s at best and in reality pre-mid-1900s. What the scientists are doing is guessing, but I will go along here and call it an "estimate."

Now, you cannot compare estimated readings to actual readings and make a valid projection. And you really cannot do it when 1-3 degrees C is the temperature rise being projected as the "estimate" can easily be off 1-3C. Heck, the thermometers back then might have been off by a degree. We know that the reading stations moved from city to airport in the 1950s. That alone makes comparing to any level of precision useless.

If you want to let the comment stand on its own as I write it here that is cool.

I know what you are saying.

But of course you can make valid projections from estimates. The estimates are not off by 1 - 3 Celcius. A thermometer back then might have been off by a degree. Not all thermometers were off by a degree. Scientists are using groups of data of thousands of points to reduce error. They acknowledge error when stations moved from cities to airports. The Urban Heat Island effect is known and well understood and data has been corrected to account for that which of course introduces error.

Part of science is error reporting and confidence levels. All estimates are subject to error reporting which is covered throughout university-level science courses. Climatologists don't publish a report without disclosing the methodology and quantity of error within its reports, which is then peer reviewed. This makes estimates more accurate and makes it quite possible to make estimates close enough to actuals to make a valid statement about temperatures in the past and then therefore be able to project the future, based on certain conditions, subject to error.

Now, just because observations in the past are subject to error doesn't mean that the future isn't so.

The common sense is still there. We are injecting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide absorbs more heat than other chemicals in the atmosphere, then more heat will be retained by the atmosphere, which will lead to global warming and climate change. The feedbacks that will help or hinder these changes are changes to solar output (very well known), earth's orbit (known), the earth's albedo (measurable), cloud clover (measurable), absorption by oceans (measurable), ocean temperature changes (measurable), major volcanic eruptions that change the atmospheric composition, etc.

As scientists understand these feedbacks through more complex climate models, the models get adjusted and attempt to become more accurate.

Politicians can choose to look at these projections and take the error bands into account. If indeed the climate change projections are at the lower end of prediction, then all of the spending was useless. However, if the climate change projections are at the higher end of prediction, spending on mitigation efforts will be too little.

The obvious solution would be to mimic a volcanic eruption and put a constant layer of sulphur dioxide high up into the atmosphere to combat the effects of CO2. The other obvious solution is less carbon in the atmosphere. The solution we are coming to is doing nothing and roll the dice and hope that the science is wrong.

Quote: boymimbo

I know what you are saying.

But of course you can make valid projections from estimates. The estimates are not off by 1 - 3 Celcius. A thermometer back then might have been off by a degree. Not all thermometers were off by a degree. Scientists are using groups of data of thousands of points to reduce error. They acknowledge error when stations moved from cities to airports. The Urban Heat Island effect is known and well understood and data has been corrected to account for that which of course introduces error.

The thermometer is only good for the last 150 years. You cannot just use "corrected" date from the urban heat effect. Well, you can, but it makes it more of a "guess" again. We can measure the difference this year, but the effect was probably different 25 to 50, 75, and 150 years ago. And changing data compromises the accuracy of the final product.

But the bigger problem is that there is certainly a 1-3C and probably more "guess factor" than the thermometers.

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The common sense is still there. We are injecting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide absorbs more heat than other chemicals in the atmosphere, then more heat will be retained by the atmosphere, which will lead to global warming and climate change. The feedbacks that will help or hinder these changes are changes to solar output (very well known), earth's orbit (known), the earth's albedo (measurable), cloud clover (measurable), absorption by oceans (measurable), ocean temperature changes (measurable), major volcanic eruptions that change the atmospheric composition, etc.


The obvious solution would be to mimic a volcanic eruption and put a constant layer of sulphur dioxide high up into the atmosphere to combat the effects of CO2. The other obvious solution is less carbon in the atmosphere. The solution we are coming to is doing nothing and roll the dice and hope that the science is wrong.

Mankind is only responsible for 3-5% of all CO2 injected into the atmosphere. We are only talking about 1-2% more CO2 than was there before the Industrial Revolution. 1-2%, this should not at all be enough to cause any kind of real change.

As to pumping SO2 into the atmosphere, are you serious? Sounds very dangerous for no real effect. And if we do it and have a volcano or worse yet a few erupt, then what?

Doing nothing isn't "rolling the dice." The planet has changed before and will change again many, many times in the next 4 billion years before the sun expands and burns it all up. To think we can get it to stop is insane. Keep your individual live robust and resilient and you will be fine.

You can, and should use whatever temperature indicators that are out there and measure error accordingly. You can't just throw away the past because you don't understand how they measure temperatures before thermometers, just like coroners use decay to approximate the date/time of death.

CO2 levels have gone up 60% since the beginning of the industrial era, and man is responsible for all of it.

Quote: boymimbo

You can, and should use whatever temperature indicators that are out there and measure error accordingly. You can't just throw away the past because you don't understand how they measure temperatures before thermometers, just like coroners use decay to approximate the date/time of death.

Once again you fail to see the difference. A coroner can take a John Doe, let it rot, and measure the rot against a known timeframe. Then he can have a control corpse. So when a crime happens he can then look at the corpse and draw conclusions.

I do not get why you think I "don't understand" how they measure temps. I DO UNDERSTAND. That is why I am not buying it. I do understand that the best they are going to get is a few degrees C when they measure a tree ring or ice core or whatever they decide to do. I do understand that they say the change in temps is the same few degrees C.

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CO2 levels have gone up 60% since the beginning of the industrial era, and man is responsible for all of it.

So? We do not have any reason to believe it is a bad thing. CO2 is needed by plants, so in that case it is good as we need plants for food and trees for building materials.