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Living within a living, loving planet
Global Warming
NY Times hired a hippie puncher to give climate obstructionists cover
May 1st
NY Times hired a hippie puncher to give climate obstructionists cover
Posted on 29 April 2017 by dana1981
https://www.skepticalscience.com/nyt-hired-hippie-puncher.html
I like the analogy below. I also like my analogy in regards to uncertainty. When we go our GP or specialist they are often not certain of the cause of our ailment and thus whether the medicine they prescribe will cure it. They often say, something like, take this and come back in X days if you are not better. We all understand that the body is an incredibly complex organism and most of us accept our physician’s efforts to help us. Well, the Earth systems are complex also and our scientists are limited in their predictive efforts mainly, in my not so humble opinion, because their instruments have been designed to register the outcomes of a machine-like object. Unfortunately, recent scientific research is revealing that Earth “behaves” as if it was a living organism. Earth is a “self-regulating” organism and thus inherently unpredictable. We are caught in the grips of vast greediness supported by our cultural beliefs, economic global order whilst being buried by our mechanistic, capitalistic, materialistic worldview.
“Stephens needs a lesson in risk management
Smoking provides an apt analogy. Each time we smoke, we increase the odds of developing cancer a little bit more. The future outcome is uncertain – we don’t know exactly if or when the disaster of cancer will hit – but we know we’re making it more likely every time we smoke, and the smart move is to mitigate that risk by cutting down on the cigarettes as quickly as possible. With climate change, each time we add more carbon pollution to the atmosphere, we increase the odds of a climate catastrophe a little bit more. The smart move is to mitigate that risk by cutting down on our burning of fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
Stephens’ piece is akin to criticizing doctors and anti-smoking groups for being too mean to the tobacco industry, and for not focusing on the uncertainty about exactly when the chain-smoking patient will develop cancer.”
Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today
Apr 1st
Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today
Posted on 31 March 2017 by John Abraham
https://www.skepticalscience.com/scientists-understood-climate-150-yr-ago-better-than-pruitt.html
Recently he (Scott Pruitt) claimed on CNBC that carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming:
I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. So, no, I would not agree that’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. But we don’t know that yet. We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.
“There are two undeniable ironies in this statement. First, taken at face value it would suggest that we actually need to do more analysis – but the current administration is proposing draconian cuts in our climate science research budget. They are doing just the opposite of what he recommends.
The second irony is that scientists have known about the importance of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas for well over 100 years. There is no debate among any reputable scientists that carbon dioxide is the most important human emitted greenhouse gas. Furthermore, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 43%. These are facts.”
“The final stop on our way-back trip brings us to 1896 and Swedish researcher Svante Arrhenius. He became the first person (that I know of) to make predictions about how much the Earth temperature would change as we add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The title of his work, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground” says it all.
Using measurements of the energy incoming from the moon, Arrhenius showed that changes to trace gases in the atmosphere can dramatically affect the temperature of the planet. He also discussed how gases are able to absorb specific wavelengths of light. Using experimental data from other preceding studies, he predicted global temperatures would rise approximately 5–6C in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
30 years ago scientists warned Congress on global warming.
Jun 12th
30 years ago scientists warned Congress on global warming. What they said sounds eerily familiar Chris Mooney June 11, 2016
“Thirty years ago we had a Republican senator who was leading the charge on addressing what he said then was a real and serious threat of climate change from the emission of gases from fossil fuel burning,” says Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), recalling the 1986 hearings. “You can read through all the things that Senator Chafee said back then, and it has all been proven true. It’s very disappointing that thirty years later, there is no such voice anywhere in the Republican Senate, and if you look for a micron of daylight between what the fossil fuel industry wants, and what the Republican Party in the Senate does, you won’t find it.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
So, the question is: Who is really running things?
Problems with biofuels
Jun 9th
Researchers find sweet source for aviation biofuel
By Mark Kinver
Environment reporter, BBC News
8 June 2015
This proposal leaves out a couple of important factors in the equation.
(1) Growing sugarcane on marginal land will require lots of water and fertiliser. It intensifies the implementation of what is becoming a process of the colonisation of Earth as a huge human food garden. Life on Earth is not all about humans.
(2) Our ecosystem sequesters carbon. Growing sugarcane for biofuel for aircraft power simply redistributes CO2 from lower levels of the troposphere to the stratosphere where other elements such as nitrogen destroys ozone and adds soot and other noxious chemicals.
(3) The better answer is the gradual limitation of air travel by various means which are doable but require a change in our behaviour. Our economic system is on a course of self-destruction and disintegration. Let us have a good look at it and change while we can.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33051949
“Ecosystems regulate Earth’s climate by adding and removing greenhouse gases (GHG) such as CO2 from the atmosphere. In fact, forests, grasslands, peat swamps, and other terrestrial ecosystems collectively store much more carbon than does the atmosphere (Lal 2002). By storing this carbon in wood, other biomass, and soil, ecosystems keep CO2 out of the atmosphere, where it would contribute to climate change. Beyond just storing carbon, many systems also continue to accumulate it in plants and soil over time, thereby “sequestering” additional carbon each year. Disturbing these systems with fire, disease, or vegetation conversion (e.g., land use / land cover (LULC) conversion) can release large amounts of CO2. Other management changes, like forest restoration or alternative agricultural practices, can lead to the storage of large amounts of CO2. Therefore, the ways in which we manage terrestrial ecosystems are critical to regulating our climate.”
Skeptical Science: Time is running out on climate denial.
Jan 2nd
“Greg Craven summarized why by examining the extreme possible outcomes in his viral climate ‘decision grid’ video.”
Posted on 30 December 2014 by dana1981
http://www.skepticalscience.com/time-running-out-on-climate-denial.html
If you can afford to watch a video for 9+ minutes, this is a good investment. And, as I recollect, the US government made the column “A” choice over the possibility of a nuclear attack by Russia in the 50’s. Billions of dollars, maybe all total over a trillion, were spent on the nuclear deterrent, mainly by the Air Force Strategic Air Command keeping bombers in the air heading towards targets 24/7 plus a 24/7 command aircraft in the air plus who knows how many Nike missile sites and hundreds of missiles: not to mention the personnel and support costs. The US government definitely took column “A” and avoided the column “B” true. So the method has been tried and proven effective in that case. I suggest it will work in the case of climate change caused by global warming. The boss may not always be right but is still the boss. Humans may not be causing global warming but the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are still warming. What do you think?
Waiting for Godot?
Nov 3rd
“The overall rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide during the last deglaciation was thought to have been triggered by the release of CO2 from the deep ocean – especially the Southern Ocean. However, the researchers say that no obvious ocean mechanism is known that would trigger rises of 10-15 ppm over a time span as short as one to two centuries.”
“The oceans are simply not thought to respond that fast,” Brook said.
http://phys.org/news/2014-10-abrupt-pulse-carbon-dioxide-deglaciation.html
I read daily updates on climate change science and suspected results of the certain rapid increase in CO2 and methane levels in both the atmosphere and oceans. In the oceans it increases acidification to the detriment of crustaceans and other hard shelled animals. In addition I read about climate change deniers and detractors; many of which are paid to create cherry picking and inaccuracies that result in doubt in public opinion.
I find constant revisions and updated findings. The uncertainty fuels deniers who demand scientific “proof.”
Science does not and never has supplied “truth.” The primary cause of the subject of uncertainty is a misunderstanding of the nature of Earth. Earth is a living being and not a machine. Earth events are often unpredictable and constantly break the “laws of Nature” that we persist in holding onto. Earth rhythms and cycles never exactly repeat. Variation resides in the very core of what it is to be planet Earth.
Take our medical Doctor visits. We learn to accept the “uncertainty” of our health and our illness treatments. We think nothing of following medical advice. For instance, the exact cause of an illness often cannot be determined accurately. We are sometimes told to take this medicine and come back in awhile to see if it worked. If not then other medicine is prescribed.
Governments and other power structures have habituated the “do nothing until we have absolute proof,” and “not enough data has been collected” excuses. They fiddle while Rome burns. It is time to stop searching for who started the fire and concentrate on putting out the fire.
We don’t need to know the exact extent of anthropogenic causes to become aware that humans, within the present cultural and global economic system, contribute a significant and irrefutable amount of greenhouse gases. These gasses are undeniably present and increasing. Weather in most regions of Earth is becoming more severe,[see: http://mashable.com/2014/11/02/super-typhoon-nuri-strongest-storm-2014/#:eyJzIjoiZiIsImkiOiJfeGhoOTN4dDhsbmZvcmc1ayJ9] sea levels are rising, glaciers and polar icepacks are melting faster than predicted, and oceans are warming while life-forms that make up our food chain are dying. Desertification is increasing whilst global air currents carry little or no moisture from the rainforests to sustain vegetation.
Surely it is obvious to all rational beings that we can wait no longer for certainty, for “scientific proof.”
Global warming denial
Aug 20th
Global warming denial rears its ugly head around the world, in English
Posted on 18 August 2014 by dana1981
“In Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s chief business adviser Maurice Newman offered a prime example of global warming denial last week. Writing in The Australian, Newman suggested that we’re headed for a period of global cooling due to declining solar activity and related influences from galactic cosmic rays, calling mainstream climate science “a religion.”
As Graham Readfearn showed in his fact check of The Australian opinion piece, Newman got the science badly wrong in almost every way imaginable. Scientific research has consistently shown that a grand solar minimum would barely make a dent in human-caused global warming, and that galactic cosmic rays do not exert a significant influence on the Earth’s climate. To argue otherwise, Newman relied on selective cherry picking of some research, and a misinterpretation of other studies.
Due to his lack of a scientific background, combined with his likely ideological biases, it’s understandable that Newman would get the science wrong on this issue. The problem is that Newman has the ear of Australia’s Prime Minister. Worse yet, the country’s biggest-selling national newspaper printed his error-riddled editorial, misinforming its readership in the process. As a result of this sort of thinking, the Australian government recently revoked its carbon tax without a replacement plan to meet its carbon pollution reduction targets.”
Comments 1 to 10:
Ashton at 02:22 AM on 19 August, 2014
Unfortunately I think you’ll find that almost always reports in the MSM (yes even the reviled MUrdoch papers) reach many, many more readers than does SkS, Real Climate. Open Mind etc. Given that, it is unlikely this analysis will have much effect on the average citizen…..
Ashton has hit the nail on the head. The truth of the matter is downplayed if not ignored by the major media players. Deniers are given equal coverage as if there was equal representation. Sadly, money and politics determine media content and a very few scientists are paid to spread questionable if not bogus claims. These few get mainstream publicity as if they represented a large block of opinion. The MORI poll in this article shows the extent of public belief in anthropogenic causes of global warming. What can we do? Speak out, challenge people who mouth disproved “evidence” and vote for people who see the truth of the matter.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-denial-rears-ugly-head-world-english.html
Marine economy sinks as ocean acidity rises
Aug 18th
“Scientists say the oceans are now 30% more acidic than they were at the beginning of the industrial revolution about 250 years ago.
Climate scientists say greenhouse gas emissions resulting from coal burning are a main cause of global warming.”
http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/08/marine-economy-sinks-as-ocean-acidity-rises/
Rapid rise in Arctic temperatures linked to changes in extreme weather and global wind patterns
Aug 14th
“Temperatures in the Arctic have risen twice as fast as the rest of the world since 2000, and this could have triggered changes to global wind patterns, which have brought extreme weather to lower latitudes, the researchers said.”