Do you honestly think we will ever have a perfectly accurate model of weather or even close? There are so very many variables that can potentially influence weather and interact with each other in a myriad of ways.

The models we have are more designed to predict averaged behavior over a long period of time and over large geography, not predict individual events. Those models also do cover the more extremes of weather, but rare events like that don't matter much.

The problem I have though is people use single events such as an unusual weather event (like a lot of snow in an area that usually gets very little) and try to use it as anecdotal evidence for or against the theory. The thing is though is that individual events don't matter, it's the overall trend that does.

Also the theoretical framework does cover large changes in weather patterns, as one thing global temperature change does is screw with the water and air currents (which are major factors in weather produced). This is in part due to the uneveness of temperature change across the globe (the poles for example have been warming up much faster then the rest of the world as co2 levels tend to concentrate there).

Well there isn't much we can do about volcanoes and the gases they emit. But we can do something about what we are doing.

Yes many mass extinction events happened very rapidly, but not all of them. There is evidence for example that the K-T extinction did not happen anywhere near as fast as people think (there are dino bones found 40,000 years after the event for example). From a geological perspective these events happen in the blink of an eye, yet from a human perspective they can take hundreds of years or longer before the full effect is felt.

However we also have several examples of gradual changes in the environment such as the ice ages, and that is where the comparisons are being made, not in the sudden events. I have never read a single paper from a reputable source where such comparisons you speak of have been made. Nor would any make such a claim as x co2 = y change as it is not that simple.

If you can link such papers (and they have to be reputable sources), I would be interested to see them.


The very basics are that simple though, higher co2 levels in the air = more trapped heat pretty much, just as lower co2 levels = less trapped heat. The degree that it happens is where it becomes more questionable and much more variable due to all the possible variables for temperature.

As for the sun's output, I am not aware of any overall decreases in the last while. It does go through phases of activity where it releases more and less energy, and accordingly grows and shrinks. We also have a very good idea of the effect of co2 on temperature from ice core data.

I have never heard of any reputable scientist postulating that plants will start to breath faster. For one thing if you understand how photosynthesis works such an idea makes little sense. For plants to photosynthesize faster, they would need more light (and the ability to absorb it) and water in addition to co2. They already do it at pretty close to optimal levels as it is, and are evolved to do it as efficiently as possible for their environment

Anyhow I disagree with your assertion based on what I know. The sense of urgency comes from the fact that it will take a very long time for us to do something about it, and it may already be too late before we even do. Even if we halt the rate of co2 increase the temperature will still continue to climb for quite a while after that as the system has not reached the stabilizing point yet for the amount of co2 in the air.

Well I disagree. We don't know it all (nor ever will) but we know enough to see the trends and warning signs, and be very concerned about it. Living "responsibly" isn't going to cut it either, as what exactly is living responsibly? That can have many possible definitions and none of them would do enough.

As for the public, well most of them barely understand the first thing about science or how it works. They constantly misinterpret it and try to apply it incorrectly and then when it doesn't work they will claim its false. Also most of these predictions are still several decades away at minimum.

Oh I've never been a fan of Gore. He was useful at first in raising awareness, but mostly he is a liability as he doesn't understand the science much better then your average lay person, and as a result frequently says things which are not true. People love to wait for him to mess up and then say "ahah! see I told you it's all a lie! That proves it." as if what he says proves or disproves anything at all. I have already torn him apart and discarded him a few times in other threads.

Oh? I know of a handful of reputable scientists that have peer reviewed articles on the subject. On the academic databases there are not very many such articles. There is however a landslide of peer reviewed articles in support of man made climate change. But I would be interested in seeing some examples (links to peer reviewed articles) of what you say.

Also the method I use to discard research is pretty much the standard method used in science (which by the way is fairly democratic in how consensus is reached). If it is not peer reviewed from a reputable source with sufficient references, it didn't happen and doesn't exist. This is the case with most of the counter 'evidence' offered from public sources.

Umm.. no. That was never the scientific consensus, that was a religious ruling based off of a few verses in the bible. Modern science started with Heliocentric theory, which claimed the opposite (and was proven mostly true). Even the ancients knew otherwise from astronomical observation.

I also do not think the judgment is at all rushed or is the science behind it. Science has been aware of this problem and has been researching it for well over 40 years now (some say well over 100 years depending on which article is considered the start). The science behind it will never be perfect, it can't ever be as it is a human creation and thus will always be flawed. This doesn't mean though we should not listen. Heck we have wildly gone ahead with risky science all the time. Like the atom bomb for example, its a good thing that certain scientists were wrong, otherwise we would have burn off the atmosphere.

We are about as sure as we are ever likely to get given the nature of the beast and science itself. People like to wait until the roof is caving in, that is the problem. I can point to many many different civilizations that went extinct exactly because they refused to see the problems and warning signs. This is one of the few things we are very responsible for and can change, unlike storms, comets, volcanoes, etc. Humanity is now almost a global civilization, if it collapses, it will collapse everywhere.

Hmm funny, all I have been doing this entire time is thinking rationally (I am a scientist, its what I do for a living). Anyhow as for Yellowstone super erupting, not much we can do about that either way. If it happens we are seriously screwed (and way more then 25% of the population will die if it super erupts in the long term).

If you wait for complete models you will wait for eternity as they will never exist. Turning off the lights, car pooling, and all the other grass roots stuff is not going to change things. There are way to many people producing way to much carbon and other pollution in the world. The problem as I see it is the changes that need to be made are massive baring some miracle technology. There are way to many humans on this planet, sucking up way to many resources. That desperately needs to change, but I don't see it happening as at least 5 billion need to go away if we want real sustainability. I figure nature will in the end make the choice for us.


I do not consider myself to be an alarmist. The conclusions, as I said, I have come to are well grounded in science and history. Global warming is just one of many things we are facing. Many of these things are interconnected, and one will amplify the effect of others. Such as global warming working on the global ecosystem which is being strained to the breaking point as it is. I am very worried by all that I see.

Yes, actually. We may never attain perfect models, but I think we'd be able to get quite close.

Our models and data are always improving. The very idea that we're already at or close to the pinnacle of climatic modeling doesn't ring true to me at all.Indeed. However, I remember that after hurricane Katrina, scientists predicted a swelling in Atlantic storm activity the following year, using those models. Furthermore, they attributed their prediction on global warming.

It didn't come true.

Those models are indeed predictions of long term AVERAGES. Why, then, is much of the scientific community dead set upon using that data for more immediate alarmism?Man, how right you are in this, but how wrong your interpretation of this is, in my opinion.

Yes, we need to control what we can control. But what doesn't make sense is that many people on your side of the debate actually believe that it is possible to control the human condition overall.

We have a burgeoning global population, developed nations with no interest in pollution control but a vested interest in economic and industrial development (China), and an increasing global energy demand. You believe that, while we cannot control, say, volcanos, WE can control human energy consumption and the resulting CO2 emmissions. I submit to you that you're wrong - we can hardly control human energy consumption any more than we can control a volcano.

What we CAN do is avoid absurd policies which shift industry from countries with decent environmental policies to those without. Say, if it's too expensive to build something in demand in the US due to environmental policies, then it will simply be built in China, with lax controls. Most extinctions happen in a geological blink but really occur over a period of many years. Should a large enough asteroid collide with the Earth today, we'd see massive loss of life initially but human civilization would likely prattle on for thousands of years. The environmental changes may or may not eventually catch up to humans, and either we would become extinct or we'd survive.

However, in any case, the event itself which would cause the eventual extinction would have happened in an instant. That is essentially what theoretically happened regarding the K-T extinction.

Pollution, on the other hand, is a much slower process. The Earth is far more likely to be able to adapt to gradual CO2 emmissions than, say, the Chicxulub event.

Ultimately, my point is we really don't know.For full disclosure, I only follow climatology with passing interest. Physics are far more interesting to me. As such, I don't read papers but simply follow the highlights. If something seems interesting, I look briefly at it and at counter-proposals without predisposition. I found that, in science, it's pretty easy to identify what makes sense.

That being said, science is NOT A DEMOCRACY! There have been many instances of failed scientific consensus. I'll link to a great list a lilttle bit later on.

In any case, that's besides my point. I have little doubt that CO2 levels are rising, my issue is that the effects of this are little understood. Umm...yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superse...tific_theories

Ever heard of Aristotle? Or Ptolemy? Both believed in the geocentric model of the universe where the Earth was at the center, and not for religious purposes. The latter was a mathematician, the former devised one of the first theories on physics.

BOTH proposed a geocentric universe independantly of anything Biblical (I'm pretty sure Aristotle had no idea what the Bible even was), which mathematical reasoning behind it. I'm not saying we shouldn't listen. I'm merely saying the data is incomplete. And finally, I'm saying that we should attempt to make drastic, short-sighted economic policy based upon such data.Perhaps the global civilization will collapse, but personally I don't think humanity benefits greatly from being a global civilization anyway.

In all honesty though, I don't see any collapse as necessarily being global, and I don't see why one should except in perhaps an anecdotal sense. Should civilization change, there will be haves and have-nots. The haves will move on, and mankind will endure. In fact, preventing such a collapse is partly why I'm so opposed to socialism, but that's another topic for another time.Okay, so my point was wrong, how?

Also, what kind of science do you do?I pretty much agree with all of that (although I think you're idea that the earth could only sustain around 1 to 2 billion people is, well, off).

In the end, my point is this: we really don't know what's going to happen, we need to NOT screw with economics in an attempt to engineer a decrease in energy use as it could likely backfire, and we need to search for an artificial way of stabilizing the climate SHOULD it become necessary.I don't agree completely.

I mentioned in my last post about the sun's impact on terrestrial climate. The sun's output is continually decreasing (over long term periods) at it decreases in overall mass. However, there have been recent theories that a long term solar cycle may be a primary cause of the Earth's past ice ages. An ice age would be detrimental to humanity as well, wouldn't it?

Furthermore, over the long term geological period known as the Cenozoic, we have been experiencing a rather steady period of global COOLING. Increased CO2 and other greenhouse gasses could have perhaps a stabilizing effect long term. Or, should an ice age loom (due perhaps to solar causes), an enhanced greenhouse effect could be somewhat mitigating.

Again, we really don't know what the long term effects of all this is. And that's my point.

That I agree with. But that leaves us with a problem: either we institute population control measures so draconian as to make the Chinese look like saints, or we simply allow the population to continue its explosive growth. The latter is more likely considering that any sort of population control measures are likely to offend the sensibilities of western civilization.

Ultimately, once the earth can no longer sustain the human population, it will stop doing so. In the meantime, however, I believe our scientific endeavors should focus not on alarmism but rather practical solutions. Arcologies, artificial climate control, etc., should be our goals.

That would be the most painful way of solving the problem. We've used our technology to stave that day off for so long that when it finally fails it may drop us right into extinction.

For sure, but what's the alternative?

To f*ck political correctness and install birth control wherever possible or isolate from areas where this is not possible.
I'm afraid that would be the only way, but people will ignore that and preach about human rights and stuff....how many rights will they still have when they have to fight to death for water, food, oil, wood etc. ?:nope:

I don't pretend to have all the answers but whatever is done will have to be done world wide.

What do you mean by isolate?

More and more I tend to think that if there is truth in that everything has it'S right time, has a rise, a climax, and a decline, then it is unreasonable to assume that human civilisation as we know it is the exception from the rule.

As I pointed out some weeks ago, man has the ability to reject survival for very reasonable, very logical reasons that make a lot of sense.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=159065

How to come from 7+ billion to 1 billion in a reasonable ammount of time...? Let nature handle it? Or lend her a hand ourselves? There is a massive moral dilemma.

Man has a tendency to get to a point where either nature steps in - or we do it for nature. Massive epidemics, war, etc.

Ultimately, its not a question of IF nature or man will prune the tree of humanity - its a question of WHEN. Only by expansion off this rock can humanity avoid such an outcome.

Damned unpleasant - but facts usually are.

Edit - isn't it odd how far we have come from the OP - and the reality that one of the "leading" climatologists behind the global warming hoax has admitted that there has been no real change in 60 years..... EDIT - that should be 15 years..... my fault - had 1950 on the brain at the moment.

Where the hell did this happen, how did I miss this?

Its easy to miss, what you did was fail to take the word "significant" and change it to "real" and then take "15" and quadruple it.
So you really made the simple mistake of missing something because it wasn't there.
Learn to use your imagination more and then you won't miss out on so many fantabulous statements.

Blocking the boarders. Don't let people of those places "invade" countries that do have birth control. Not really perfect, I know, but I don't know how else to protect a country with birth control from beeing "flooded" by people from countries that are still celebrating growing populations.

Well, with world wide birth control (yes, I know it is impossible and plenty of countries don't want / can't do it...) the population would shrink by 50% within the next 80 years.
The big question is, what is a reasonable time?

Actually there is pretty much no way to save the planet (and ourselves) with mild therapies any more. But as long as we are ignorant of this and continue to be proud of growing populations (not so much in the west, but in some other places...) it's controlled, wanted suicide.

A timeframe that leaves us still enough time to to throw around the helm and save our future once a lower population level has been reached. I doubt that much time is left. So nature will have her ways of settling the question of humanity's fate.

Demographic control is something EU policies is strictly against. Not only is there an irrational fear of lower population sizes in Europe (as a matter of fact after the end of the heavy industry era we do not need as many workers anymore as before), there is also a dedicated social-engineering experiment going on in Europe, for reasons that qualify as suicidal self-deception.

The following link is not due to the Islam-related content itself, but the deep corruption and treason of the EU, which has a major impacts on birth policies and population levels. You may need to dig a bit into it, it is a long document. But you should get the content quite easily, and see how this is against anything like "birth control".

published 2006
http://vladtepesblog.com/?page_id=289
http://vladtepesblog.com/?page_id=1131

2008-update
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3590

Do not shoot the messenger - the sites hosting the documents - for the message, give the message a chance to speak for itself. Also note that the documents can be found at many different sites indeed. Some are more leaning than others, and certainly none of them is left, islamophile or pro-EU.

A German translation of the complete chapters you can find here:
http://www.pi-news.net/wp/uploads/2010/02/Defeating_Eurabia_German_Book1.pdf

It reads "Book1", but it is all 5 chapters nevertheless.

I do not say Fjordman'S blog entries and essays are the 100% exact representation of reality - but I think he points at some where obvious and very worrying facts that explain plenty of the otherwise apparently bigot or unreasonable decisions in EU policies. And so far I have not learned any better explanations for the dicatorship the EU has turned into - the biggest coup d'état in the history of mankind. If you look at it from his perspective, many things suddenly fall into place and actually make sense.

This will probably take me days to read as I'm a bit short of time at the moment.:o

Antikristuseke - that should be 15 years - I have edited it to be correct(but left the mistatement since its been quoted). I had 1950 on the brain when I typed that. My screw up.

The message speaks for itself, the people speaking the message speak for themselves, it says a lot about the message and those who say it.

Wow a notorious ignorant bigots writings are not exactly accurate to reality, what a shocking revelation, who would have thought it:rotfl2:

Also note that many sites no longer use the documents as the author is a nutcase with links to racist extremists

:DL Is that like me "celebrating" my expanding waist line? [/QUOTE]

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0222-h...onviction.html


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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...imate-sceptics

http://rawstory.com/2009/2009/12/cli...es-exxonmobil/

Someone should really put a stop to this. This could impact the climate drramatically !!!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aLAUn4Gy92ss