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

Quote: kenarman

You didn't actually address the point of my post. Anything that doesn't support the ever increasing speed of climate change is not reported. Anything that does is headline news. How many on the forum have heard that the biggest glacier in Greenland has been ADDING ICE for several years. You would think that would make the news. The "experts" have now justified it by pointing out that the north Atlantic has just entered into a cooling trend that is on a 20 year cycle. For the last 20 years was it ever mentioned that we were in the warm part of the 20 year cycle that would be accelerating ice loss?

I don't see that. Says small increase.

And this quote from the article - if the Greenland Ice Sheet could put on 44 billions tons of ice each year going forward, it would take 82 years to get back to its 2002 self.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/greenland-ice-sheets-2017-weigh-suggests-small-increase-ice-mass


Greenland Ice Sheet's 2017 weigh-in suggests a small increase in ice mass
Author:
Rebecca Lindsey
September 14, 2017

More than a mile thick in places, the Greenland Ice Sheet is so large that it would cover the Gulf of Mexico and spill over onto the shores of the Gulf Coast states. If it melts completely, it will raise the height of the ocean surface by 20 feet (6 meters). It’s already on its way: since 2002, it’s been losing an estimated 269 billion tons of ice each year. This year, however, may be an exception.
This animation shows areas of the ice sheet where surface melting—one process by which the ice sheet loses mass—was detected by satellite this summer. Melt area in 2017 was smaller than average in late spring and early summer.

This whole subject is such crap.
What happened was, in the last
20 years we've gotten real
sophisticated and accurate in
how we measure these things.

So with everything constantly
adding or subtracting mass, some
people freak out and think the
world is ending. These things
have been going on for eons,
we never had a way accurately
measure it before.

measuring accurately is bad enough, analyzing it is often a joke. California once had to go from Drought Disaster Control to Flood Disaster Control. Confused the telephone operators.

remember ptsosis, a condition wherein a person's organs were too high in their chest? Doctors saw corpses with lower organs and thought that was "correct".

Quote: AZDuffman

By this point, any intelligent person should be saying, "wait a minute......." Instead we hear "SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO THE SCIENTISTS!"

I wonder what is the connection between atheism and belief in global warming. Because it really seems to take the place of religion in people's lives. The higher power they follow. Filling some kind of anthropological need for believing in a higher power.

Is there not a similarity with Pascal's wager?

GW is fake, so we do nothing. Everything carries on as normal.
GW is fake, but we make change. Economy gets shuffled.
GW is real, so we make change. Damage is lessened.
GW is real, but we do nothing. Billions lost in life and finance.

Seems to me unless you value a dollar over life itself, the first choice in this conversation is easy. Using natural gas over coal isn't exactly suffering. Neither is nuke over gas. Paper straws haven't yet ruined my life, pig tail bulbs drive me bats#$% but are solved with a darker lampshade, canvas grocery bags... well, they're actually an improvement.

I can dig resistance cuz I'll agree, there's an awful lot of unknowns, not sures, not proveables, and more than enough hypocrisy from the Chicken Little's. And hell, for a couple of you this IS your life, and I'm not exactly falling over myself to run shot glass 4 pots with wagon wheel turbos, either.

But what are we fighting for? The "freedom" to consume as much bulls#$% as it takes to fill the holes in our souls?

That's where I'm flipped. It is certain and obvious that more s#$% in the air means warmer temps, it is as testable as a thing can be. I'm NOT sure anyone has a solid handle on just how much it'll take, or what changes and how fast they will be, or any of the myriad positives that could (and will) come from it. For me it's not about "faith" or anything nearing certainty. It's just that it's a really big f#$%ing "maybe" that I can do something about without, and here's the kicker, really doing anything at all.

Maybe I'd feel differently if I WAS different. Not exactly difficult to get me to quit my jet setting and pick up a pair of hiking boots instead, ya know? I dunno what to say. It does bother me when nature is razed. I can dig mining, drilling, lumbering, I understand housing and facilities as necessary. But if you've ever been in an emergency, a big one, you'll see how much of this is necessary and how absolutely most all of it is just wasteful f#$%ing garbage.

Someone's gotta be the Lorax. May as well be me.

Quote: Face

Is there not a similarity with Pascal's wager?
.

All I can tell ya is, I judge GW
by what's going on in my back
yard, This has been the 5th
coldest spring since they started
keeping records in 1887.

25 degrees below normal this
week. It usually hits 80 once
before Ap 30th. This year it
won't even do it by June 1st.

This is the longest I've ever
gone without installing the
window air units. They are
always in by May 1st, won't
be till June this year.

So screw GW, I don't give a
flying fukaduck if it's above
normal in the Gobi Desert.
Until it's consistently above
normal here, who cares.

Quote: rxwine

I don't see that. Says small increase.

And this quote from the article - if the Greenland Ice Sheet could put on 44 billions tons of ice each year going forward, it would take 82 years to get back to its 2002 self.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/greenland-ice-sheets-2017-weigh-suggests-small-increase-ice-mass


Greenland Ice Sheet's 2017 weigh-in suggests a small increase in ice mass
Author:
Rebecca Lindsey
September 14, 2017

More than a mile thick in places, the Greenland Ice Sheet is so large that it would cover the Gulf of Mexico and spill over onto the shores of the Gulf Coast states. If it melts completely, it will raise the height of the ocean surface by 20 feet (6 meters). It’s already on its way: since 2002, it’s been losing an estimated 269 billion tons of ice each year. This year, however, may be an exception.
This animation shows areas of the ice sheet where surface melting—one process by which the ice sheet loses mass—was detected by satellite this summer. Melt area in 2017 was smaller than average in late spring and early summer.

You are quoting 2017 look for this years info.

Quote: Face

Is there not a similarity with Pascal's wager?

GW is fake, so we do nothing. Everything carries on as normal.
GW is fake, but we make change. Economy gets shuffled.
GW is real, so we make change. Damage is lessened.
GW is real, but we do nothing. Billions lost in life and finance.

Seems to me unless you value a dollar over life itself, the first choice in this conversation is easy. Using natural gas over coal isn't exactly suffering. Neither is nuke over gas. Paper straws haven't yet ruined my life, pig tail bulbs drive me bats#$% but are solved with a darker lampshade, canvas grocery bags... well, they're actually an improvement.

I can dig resistance cuz I'll agree, there's an awful lot of unknowns, not sures, not proveables, and more than enough hypocrisy from the Chicken Little's. And hell, for a couple of you this IS your life, and I'm not exactly falling over myself to run shot glass 4 pots with wagon wheel turbos, either.

But what are we fighting for? The "freedom" to consume as much bulls#$% as it takes to fill the holes in our souls?

That's where I'm flipped. It is certain and obvious that more s#$% in the air means warmer temps, it is as testable as a thing can be. I'm NOT sure anyone has a solid handle on just how much it'll take, or what changes and how fast they will be, or any of the myriad positives that could (and will) come from it. For me it's not about "faith" or anything nearing certainty. It's just that it's a really big f#$%ing "maybe" that I can do something about without, and here's the kicker, really doing anything at all.

Maybe I'd feel differently if I WAS different. Not exactly difficult to get me to quit my jet setting and pick up a pair of hiking boots instead, ya know? I dunno what to say. It does bother me when nature is razed. I can dig mining, drilling, lumbering, I understand housing and facilities as necessary. But if you've ever been in an emergency, a big one, you'll see how much of this is necessary and how absolutely most all of it is just wasteful f#$%ing garbage.

Someone's gotta be the Lorax. May as well be me.

I agree with much of your post about buying and wasting s**t. I agree that is a problem and I think probably a bigger problem than CO2. Since China will no longer accept most of our garbage (formerly called recyclables) we by and large are sending recyclables to the landfill in North America. Biggest problem for both issues is simply to many humans.

I must point out that you haven't quit the minimal jet setting you do though although I agree that you lead a pretty small environmental footprint. Your employer however runs their trucks 6 days a week. Probably could be done more efficiently with fewer days but people would scream if their Amazon parcel took a couple of more days to get delivered.

Quote: kenarman

You are quoting 2017 look for this years info.

I'd be happy to if I could find something recent. You must be able to, since you made the claim. Where did you get your claim from?

I see another study up to 2018. Doesn't help you either. I'm not sure when they start figuring in 2019 data as 2019 isn't over.

Quote:

Using improved records of ice thickness, surface elevation, ice velocity, and SMB, we present a 46-years reconstruction of glacier changes across Greenland that reveals a dominance from ice discharge over the entire record and a sixfold increase in mass loss from the 1980s. The largest mass loss is from NW, SE, and CW, which are controlled by tidewater glaciers. Several glaciers, including Humboldt, Steenstrup-Dietrichson, and Køge Bugt C. North Greenland (NO, NE) have played a stronger role in the total mass loss than reported previously, hence illustrating the value of an extensive time series of mass balance that includes all of the large glaciers. We also find that the ice sheet as a whole was near balance over the time period 1972–1990. In the future, we expect the mass changes in the northern part of Greenland to become of greatest importance to sea level rise, because of the large reserve of ice above sea level and the potential for manyfold increase in ice discharge.

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/19/9239

Quote: Face

Is there not a similarity with Pascal's wager?

GW is fake, so we do nothing. Everything carries on as normal.
GW is fake, but we make change. Economy gets shuffled.
GW is real, so we make change. Damage is lessened.
GW is real, but we do nothing. Billions lost in life and finance.

The real problem is in the last one. If we assume warming is real, and I still do not, why do we assume it is a problem? Historically warmer is better. Secondly, are we that arrogant to think that we can control the climate of an entire planet?

Warmer for one means a longer growing season. A good thing. People have moved to the sunbelt for 50 years for a reason.

My problem is too much of the entire environmental movement is about "feelings" and not based on results. In my day paper grocery bags got recycled by being reused. Trash liners to book covers. Today they want to ban all grocery bags. More resources to make the replacements. Plastic straws? The new plastic cups to replace them actually use more plastic.

Give me the sensibility of the farmer or hunter over the suburban "environmentalist" any day of the week. The later probably hates fracking but does not know that natural gas is the main reason the USA is one of the few countries that has had meaningful CO2 reductions the past 10 years. They just repeat what the lamestream media puts out.

Climate has been changing for 4.5 billion years. In 1,000 years or so, the Earth will shake us off like the fleas we are, then start with some other species. This will go on for another 4 billion years until the Sun swallows it all up. We cannot change a planet's climate.

If science was able to provide data that burning fossil fuels was good for the environment, I would accept that data if it were just as convincing as the issue is the other way currently.

Some people seem unable to do anything but see their political views. They've got a problem. Not my problem.