Call it personal observation. I am in no way an 'expert'. But to me mankind thinking they can influence the enviroment on a grand scale is just a little bit arrogant.

But lets make an example. A deadly typhoon is bearing down on Venezuala, what can mankind do to stop it?

A blizzard paralyzes the north east of the united stats, what can mankind do to stop it?

A volcano in the tropics erupts and spews billions of metric tons of ash and steam into the atmosphere. In fact it spews forth more pollutants in one day than the entire industrialized globe has done in its entire lifetime. what can mankind do to stop it?

Will do for Skybirds sake. Somehow I think Skybird does not think highly of Al Gore either and it raises the old hackels just reading his name.

And yet we have managed to over-fish most of the oceans, extincted countless species, and are stripping most of the worlds forests for fuel.

There are almost 7 billion people on this planet, each one wanting food, fuel and a place to live. We are cutting down the co2 absorbers in massive numbers and dumping tremendous amounts of carbon into the environment (by burning fuel such as wood, coal, oil, etc). Frankly I think its equally arrogant to claim we are not having an effect.

Also just cause we can't control the weather, doesn't mean we don't effect it.

In 2007 the estimated amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by humans was around 10 billion tons globally. So unless you are talking a super eruption, like if Yellowstone park errupted, we are out producing your average volcano. Especially when you consider that most of the stuff spewed out by a volcano comes back to the earth pretty rapidly, where as carbon does not (it has to be absorbed by plants mostly)

Frankly I don't think many scientists think very highly of him either. He is seriously muddying the waters by politicizing the issue. This isn't a political issue, its a scientific one. If we are significantly responsible for what is happening, we better think about trying to fix it before it fixes us.

That is such queer a "logic" that I refuse to adress it. In fact I feel sorry for me that I even have to take note of this nonsens-argument.

Get serious.

If you dont think this is a political issue I just dont know what to say.

Oh hell, I agree with you 100%. Al is a lousy poster child for this issue. So, back to the post you have there with SW and the population. I will repeat again, I do think man does contribute to climate change. To what extent I do not believe we can measure, however, the landscape is getting raped as well as the oceans and what lies beneath as you pointed out. I think this will be our undoing before any type of climate change does.

It is not a political issue but has been made a political issue and a pawn for those seeking political leverage or clout. Plus, it is a convienent way to introduce more taxes.

No that won't kill us, but it may push an already unbalanced system over the edge. The proverbial straw on the camel's back.

What sudden increase? I remember claims after Katrina that hurricanes would become far more numerous but that hasn't happened at all.

The intensity and number of severe storms has been increasing over the globe. You can also have high and low periods between years, which is why one looks more long term to avoid statistical flukes. Anyhow here is some data.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/24452

If that data is true, the number of category 4&5 hurricanes has more then doubled in the last 30 years. I would call that a sudden increase myself.

AVG said pretty much what I would have said.

Unfortunately by having been turned into a political entity, with each side of the political spectrum lining up behind a certain side (and all those milking each side for their own gain), it has become a political quagmire, where it is not about fact or science any more, its about your ideology. The debate is taking place in the general public on ideological terms, not factual or scientific.

This is why when I get involved in environmental debates, the first thing I'll do is try to shred to pieces all the ideological crap clogging up the issue, so that it can be looked at with out all the attached rubbish. The political stuff is irrelevant and a distraction.

Yes. And your little research = what I said, what you read in the papers and hear on TV from "experts". You don't know if man is impacting the global environment. But you can choose to think so, if you wish. Like I said, I am not convinced one way or the other.

No, not at all. But it does define the limits of what I believe :)

Hey, how do you we don't do that now? But in a humble state of secretness? :03:



That's right, there were no major storms of any consequence this year. I guess that's just outlier data, we better get ready for 10 class 5's next year.

Oh hell, FEMA and I will be very very busy then.

I know this is going to irritate GW supporters - but lets be real.

Yes, I will be the first to admit that "fact" that over the last 600 years there has been what appears to be a "global average" increase of temperature. However, this "fact" is based off of things like Ice Core and "third party" indicators (called proxies) - such as tree rings. Now if I am going to stipulate that - whats the problem? Global Warming must be true, right? Well not exactly.

There is a wonderful piece of wisdom that bears directly to this....

"Figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure!"

The data used to create this fact is accurate - but those presenting the arguement do so in a way to make the figures match their intended goal. Why use the figure of 600 years? Global Warming advocates in the science realm are using one of the oldest tricks in the books to push this. How you ask? Simple - instead of going back 600 years - use those same methods of gathering data to go back 200 years more - for a total of 800 years. What then? Wonder of wonders, we find that the earth was warmer 800 years ago than it is today. This is what is known as the "Medieval Warm Period" in environmental studies, and is a big problem for GW advocates.

Selective use of the start date on any set of data is one of the oldest tricks to used to get the outcome you want. Is the earth warming? Sure it is. But its doing so well within what we can already tell are its normal margins and tolerances. This "our impact is the straw that MIGHT break the camels back" is fearmongering - and is being used to create onerous, intrusive and destructive regulations and laws upon nations because others don't approve of what we do.

There are so many proofs AGAINST global warming being a man made phenomenon, its unreal. However, as a scientist, many cannot put forth that proof in "respectable" journals for the reasons we see in these emails - to go against the "consensus" - regardless of fact, is to be outcast. What is sad is that many people are defending these actions, as well as ignoring the reality that the evidence shows, because once again, it conflicts with their attempts to control others.

No. I meant it literally. I was simply talking of what I see when I open the door and go outside. That "outside" is not the same outside I used to walk out to 25 years ago. The seasons are different, the weather does not match the time of the year in the way it did back then. and I am not even living in a region with extreme climate changes and extreme weather phenomenons. these changes are so obvious that insurrance companies have recalculated their cost payments for that reason several times since I left school. they would not have done that if the weather had not changed and fluctuations - which are natural - would be within the natural norm. Due to a low in the sun cycle, currently the global means fluctuate to a relative low as well (which does not mean or show the general trend of wrming has reversed). Many people immediately say: "Look, it's coolin." but the fact remains that even since this claim is made, in the past ten years since I arrived in my current hometown, one warming record for "warmest month in the region/in Germany/in Europe since weather recordings started" has followed the other. Globally, the tmeperature may plateauing currently. But here in Northwestern Germany, you don't feel that. you just relaise that the seasonal escesses we have had for winter and summer five years ago currently do not take place.but record numbers for seasons and months we still have. Novembre just again was beyond what is the meteorological norm over here.

There are micro cycles, like sun activity, and El Nino/El Nina. they cover some years and cause the zigzags in the temperature curve. and then there is the general trend. It does not cover some years, but several decades and centuries. This is the constant general "up" in the temperature curve, that simply swallows up all that microscopic zigzagging. Much of the disucsisons leave to desire a lot becasue people do not differ ebtween the general trend, and microcycles. they think one sunny day makes a sunner, one weekened defines the yearly mean weather value, and five oir ten years of plateauing means a trend is changing. and that is simply a wrong thing to do.

Books, data, other material from research - all that exists, too, and you belitteling it will not make it go away, Neal. Better try o differ between the populstic stuff, and the more reaosonable stuff, and then have some reading about the latter, Neal, it won't hurt you. But ignorance will. To say "It's all just paper and media, and thus you only believe what they tell you to believe", is another way to say "Leave me alone, I do not want to check my own position." There is better literature than newspapers, you know. ;) If your attitude is "don't trust the media", then I have sympathy for that, but my advise is not to stop reading, but stop watching every TV news show, and most of what is on the internet. Be a critical reader, then, raise your standards. If you do, the stuff presented by "sceptics" is the stuff you will reject first.

Have you checked the photos of glaciers I linked to two days ago? It's things like that you have to explain. Or the ever rapidly disappearing arctic ice. You have to explain how it comes that species that in the past did not survive in once moderate and cold climate zones in the past, now can, and move into them, while others that cannot move and are sensible to raising temepratures, die.

the important thing simply is this. Whether you believe it is man-made or not, the climate becomes warmer, you can climb on a piano and make stand on your head and wave your hat and yell "Texans don't believe in GW" and sing your anthem backwards - but that does not change it. The question is: how do we deal with the changes that climate change will bring - whether we are prepared for them or not.

you accuse others of abusing correct data by presenting them in a manipulative manner so that it fits their agenda, but you just do right that yourself, Haplo.

the one thing you miust explain is this: why is it that the climate change speed has so insanly accelerated that now it is the - by far - fastest climate change taking place that science knows for planet earth since many huindred million years? Never, never has the climate chnaged and warmed upo so damn fast. And you need to think in geological dimensions. a tenth centigrade in a couple of years or so, that may not sound much. But for geological thinking, it is a rollercoaster falling in the vertical and having lost touch with the track. This acceleration in climate actiivty is the thing you must explain, not pointing to that cklimate is chnbaging - that is just natural. the speed at which it does is what is the message. And next you must explain why it does so obviously coincides with the beginning of the industrial age and the beginning of a real dramatic population growth globally.

I remember to have read estimations of the climate change accelrating ba several hundred factors, the fastest calculation I heared about was a factor of I think some thousand.

At the same time this planet sees another speed record: that for the fastet mass exticntion of species ever. Never before Earth has carried such a diversity in different species. and never before have species died in such a rapid succession like they do since the mpdern past, I don't know, let'S say 150 years or so. again the factor by which it accelerated, ranks in the 3-4 digit range.

for both these accelerations, no scientific discipline knows a precedent or comparable parallel caused by natural climate fluctuations.

Skybird,

It is always enjoyable to discuss in a rational manner with a friend and colleague, even when we disagree. I want you to realize I enjoy our back and forth tremendously.

With that said, you say that I am guilty of the same thing the GW proponents are. Then you ask "why is it that the climate change speed has so insanly accelerated that now it is the - by far - fastest climate change taking place that science knows for planet earth since many huindred million years?" Well, lets look at that ok?

I am going to use random numbers here to illustrate - as I do not have data in front of me at the moment. So don't quote these numbers, they are for picture purposes only.

Today's global average temp was 85 F (29.4 C) and it was warmer than that 800 years ago. Ok - lets say 800 years ago, it was 87 F (30.5 C) since your not disputing the 800 year data old data I referenced earlier. Now - data says we have been growing warmer over the last 600 years, and I will play devils advocate and accept that for now. So - for 600 years the temps have been rising right? Ok - then the two hundred years prior - they had to drop. Whats more they had to drop so steeply during that "short" 200 year period that the increases over the last 600 years still hasn't caught up. Yet you claim that "that the climate change speed has so insanly accelerated that now it is the - by far - fastest climate change taking place that science knows for planet earth since many huindred million years." Well - looking back at that 200 year cold span - where temps dropped drastically to get the GW outcome some claim, would mean that the climate change was insanely accelerated at least 3 times higher than it is today, since it had to do in 200 years what is now being reversed over the course of 600. This means your question / statement on climate change rates is fundamentally flawed. Not your fault, but the data you have been given of "hundreds of times faster" is demonstratably false.

Which could mean a number of things.

The data we are being "fed" could be inaccurate - which the emails show is at the least highly likely as there is clear communications that the data has been "massaged" to perpetrate a specific agenda.

We could look at it and realize that there were no SUV's, evil corporations spewing pollution into the air, or other "environmental" sins going on that could cause such a drastic change in the climate, which would mean that nature has its own cycles that go well beyond what our "computer models" can truly forecast with any accuracy. On that note, I would point out that we still can't even figure out for sure if its going to rain or snow or be sunny tommorow, yet we are supposed to place blind faith in what a glorified weatherman tells us its going to be like in 100 years if we don't start living in caves again. They can't nail next week's weather, but by george there is not any question what the next century will be like! Sorry, but logic says otherwise.

Lastly, we could look at our world, realize that there are things we can, and should do, to conserve the resources we share, as well as do what we can to responsibly minimize our impact on the environment without destroying our way of life. This must then include a healthy scepticism of what a talking head predicts, just as it means we need to look at the many small things we can voluntarily contribute to the efforts of conservation.

Is there climate change? Of course. The fact that we do not have a stable and static environment requires climate change. But change over 600 years, that does not outpace changes that occured over 200 years, demonstrates that we are not on some environmental "doomsday" course. It does show that the earth has undergone significant changes in climate beyond what man at the time had the ability to cause, and that the changes we see now are minimal compared to that. Thus, there is no logical reason to fearmonger - unless those in power want to use the subject to further their control. Sadly, this is what we have seen.

Not actually true, Sky.

Carboniferous period saw the most diverse range of plant and animal life (albeit somewhat less complex than todays), and the period finished in an extremely quick fashion at the end of the period.

Interesting to note, that C02 levels were roughly 3000ppm as opposed to the measly 385 or so of today, and yet the earth supported more and more diverse life than now.

hmmm

Haplo,

First, better do not base on the assumption the email "scandal" shows any systematic, widespread effort or habit to feed manipulated data for reasons of pushing an “Goreanesque” agenda. The scandal so far is not basing on the content of the emails, but is fabricated. There is not a single systematic analysis out that proves point by point that the accused emails are what they are claimed to be, but over the past days more and more insiders from the fields seem to speak out that they cannot see the accusations as being true when they consider there knowledge of habits and proceeds from inside the field. There is a lot of yelling and fingerpointing going on, and shouting and "scandal" and "shame!", but until today it is just ungrounded media hysteria that even is so noisy that it creates waves into the politicians' arena as well. And that is wanted, and that is why it has been fabricated.

antikristuseke has posted a nice video which shows some very illustrating spotlight on what I say. It is linked somewhere above, I recommend you see it.

Second, whether or not I watch a graphs of temperature over the past few centuries, or the past millennia and millions of years, I see two cycles in them, making them look like the "skyline" of a shark's row of teeth. There seems to be a natural fluctuation cycle creating ups and downs over long periods of time, we are not talking just 600 years, but at least many millennia. These spikes are the single teeth of the shark. And then there are even smaller zig-zags in the contour-lines of these "teeth", micro-fluctuations taking place over much shorter periods of time, some centuries, and less. These are the serrated edges of the single teeth of the shark. Your reference to the medieval ice age is like that.

In the past let's say 150-200 years, we have seen a quick, very high upwards spike, a spike that also has a serrated edges, but the peaks in this serration are following in shorter succession, and they are separated by longer vertical distances, meaning the temperature from peak to peak is separated by a bigger margin (sorry, I feel I currently mess with English, it seems to me). This together means a massive acceleration of a warming, taking place in a fluctuating process that sees greater extremes than we have known before. You do not see such extremes in temperature difference sin a given timeframe, or such an acceleration in the beginning cooling and ending warming phase of the medieval mini - ice age, for example.

This sudden, almost vertical rocket climb of the curve corresponds to the timetable for the beginning population explosion, the industrialisation, and the also sudden acceleration of species' extinction.

Let me tell a story. It is an epic story truly minimising the importance of man and all timescales he is used to, and it will appear to be a distraction at first, but I explain at the very end why I tell you.

360 million years ago - I admit we think in different timescales now than just from the present back to the medieval - the era of the "Devon" (same word in English?) ended with a mass termination of animal and zoological and botanic life that saw half of the species in the ocean disappearing from the stage of planet Earth. The so far dominant species of the the placodermi (appropriately called "Panzerfische" in German) was completely terminated, and the architects of the coral reefs of that time were decimated and escaped extinction only by a single hair' width. The reason for these mass extinctions at the end of the Devon is unclear, popular theory is to assume that Earth once again had been hit by meteor strike.

but it was becoming even worse. the Carboniferous lasted until 200 million years ago, following the Devon. This era sees just one giant super continent, surrounded by just one big super-ocean, and the appearing of the first coal deposits. Glaciers formed at the poles, and the oxygen in atmosphere reached a hopping 35%, resulting the enormous boost in vegetation. Fishes start to undergo major evolutionary improvement, sharks appear, squids are one dominant species in the oceans. Both animals and plants enjoy an era where they reach sizes like never before, and never again after.

but then, in the North-East of Pangaea, today's Siberia, a very ambitious Volcanic activity started to seal the fate of this era.

Life was not in balance back then. Dead organic material was not transformed as efficiently, as it was to be seen in later eras, on the other hand, the ocean was brimming with monstrous life producing ever more amounts of future dead organic matter. The dead matter reacted with the high levels of oxygen in the atmosphere, binding it. The oxygen level in the atmosphere dropped to 16% (today it is 21%). due to the forming of glaciers and the polar ice caps, the sea level fell, exposing even more dead matter to the air that before was covered by water and hidden on shallow parts of the ocean floor. The forming of the united super-continent did not help, too, because it had drastically altered the sea tidings and the circulation of global ocean waters was not as efficient anymore as it had been before.

The Volcanic activity pumped a lot of toxic agents and substances into the air, not only being dangerous to life, but also changing climate regulation and the temperature absorption, although the latter probably was on a scale that it would not have caused that drastic end-result as there has been. Ashes and sulphur combinations amassed in the atmosphere. It became colder as sun light was reflected. More ice formed up, the sea level fell even more. Some scientists say the ozone layer suffered major damage, others point at the changed sea currents that favoured bacteria eating sulphur, and their excretions slowly poisoned the ocean and poisoned the life forms in it that could not adapt to these agents soon enough.

This development was further helped, so says a dominant theory, by the impact of a meteor 6-12 km in diameter somewhere in the ocean. This probably has caused a chemical chain reaction that led to the freeing of almost all methane reserves on earth and the creation of new methane, most of it getting bound in the water. This proceeding caused by a stellar event worked hand in hand with the ongoing global killing project initiated by Earth's volcanoes.

The estimated result of this cooperation differs from source to source, nevertheless it is dramatic. Some say that 90-95% of all life forms on earth faced extinction. Others estimate that "only" 75% of all species on land but at least 95% of all maritime species in the ocean had been terminated.

Why do I tell this big story, why did I take the time to quickly reread two brief chapters in one book of mine to sort my memories on the timeline numbers, and summarize all this in the above paragraphs?

The reason is simple. It is to illustrate what it means when scientists tell us that currently the global climate is changing faster and quicker and more excessively than ever before in the known history of Earth, further helped by a stellar event that today is not there in defence of man-caused consequences. It is to illustrate the dimension of the acceleration in climate change, because this insight into Earth's past can only be filled with a living idea of what that means for us today instead of just intellectual, abstract interest if putting it into a context of geologic timescales. Planet earth has seen cataclysms that have been much, much more drastic than what we currently can, by all reason, assume to come as a result of Global Warming. But even these worse disasters were accompanied by changes in the Earth's atmosphere and climate that took place in time spans that are a hundred and thousand times longer than the handful of years in which we have accelerated climate changes in the present that by their extrapolated trend could cause as severe climatologic endresults as back then, and it needed probably meteors impacting to reach the effects that man seems to have triggered all by himself. I repeatedly read comments of scientists saying something like that man's impact on the ecosystem of planet earth can only be compared to the meteorite that hit Earth and ended the era of the dinosaurs - just that man works quicker. Today, species on this planet get deleted by extinction much faster than ever before in earth's history, and faster than during the long mass extinction at the end of the carboniferous that lasted 60 million years and took quite some part of that time to get all that life killed. Zoologists and botanies say we have accelerated the extinction of species by up to a four digit factor. Climatologists say we have accelerated the climate warming by a factor in the high three digits or low four digits. The beginning of both processes corresponds with human population explosion and mass industrialisation.

that has been a long story. Now does that put some things into relation?

We are not only responsible for ourselves, but also for the generations coming after us. It is people's future we mess up that even are not born, and cannot defend themselves and their valid interest to have a place to live in themselves. And all we do is searching excuses why we must not care and why we must not change and why we must not stop accelerating climate changes and why we are not responsible and why it cannot be what should not be, and we invest resources in fabricating pseudo-scandals and pseudo-data whose only purpose is to reassure us that we must not change.

Homo sapiens - the man gifted with reason, and intelligence.

Well - really?