Posts tagged climate change skeptics

“In 2012 the world crossed an ominous threshold. A reading of 400 parts per million [ppm] of atmospheric carbon dioxide was recorded by monitoring stations across the arctic.  That is at least 50ppm higher than the maximum concentration during the last 12,000 years, a period that allowed us to develop agriculture and civilization.” At the Edge of the Roof: The Evolutionary Crisis of the Human Spirit

From Spiritual Ecology Edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Quote from loc 574 on Kindle Edition

“On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since measurements began in 1958.”

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/news/2013/CO2400.html

I am saddened by what appears to be either a misprint [“during the last 12,000 years…”] or a misunderstanding of how CO2 and temperature varies profoundly [at least over the last million years] in an approximately 120k year cycle of around 90% massive glaciation and low average atmospheric temperature and a 10%  is the interglacial period of approximately 12,000 years.  Up until the present interglacial period, human population has had from very little to no effect on these cycles.  These cycles have been authenticated by several research projects of which the Russian Vostok station in East Antarctica is arguably the most well known.

Also well documented and validated is the behaviour of the atmospheric temperature and CO2 ppm which varies with much the same pattern.  Thus, we can observe from a graphical presentation that both temperature and CO2 rises sharply to a sharp peak and then almost as quickly plunge.  Details may be found here:  https://www.google.gr/search?q=vostok+core+samples&espv=210&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=bPzLUtG1G

So my point here is that all recorded cycles reveal high CO2 content during the peak of the interglacial warm part of the cycle. CO2ppm will always be the highest during the peak of the interglacial part of the cycle.

What then is the point?

What I suggest IS the point, however, is that the graphs of various ice core drillings reveal that CO2 has never been this high in at least a 800,000 years.  Average temperature have been this high or higher before but never CO2ppm.

It has been 3.6 million years since CO2 has been this high.  http://www.skepticalscience.com/pliocene-snapshot.html

I don’t need to reiterate just why CO2 is a problem.  Both common sense and overwhelming scientific research and scientist’s consensus point to anthropogenic factors involved here.  Just what are they?  The most well known factor is, of course, the human industrial infrastructure that burns such huge quantities of fossil fuels at a rate exceeding what Gaia can balance out and/or absorb.  Thus the greenhouse effect is driving average global temperature up.   I won’t repeat  the well known details of what has been driving temperatures in the past.  See: http://www.earthenspirituality.com/glogal-warming/

The Gaia Theory

There is another factor which is seldom cited.  It seems to only come to mind when the obvious question is asked.  I admit, the question appears to only be obvious to a few, myself included.

What has driven the temperature down sharply at the end of previous interglacial warming periods?

So much talk and media exposure is spent on what is causing the warming.  However, we may be overdue for the temperature drop.  The details of our present Holocene period reveal that the temperature did level off around two thousand years or so and began to drop.  Painfully obvious is the fact that it is now rising.

Now let me be clear.  As I mentioned above, all the cycles are different and our present one cannot be predicted to any extensive degree of accuracy.  Not only do we not have historical details to compare with, but after all we are dealing with a living being and living organisms do not behave like a machine in preciseness. Why we expect this and how well funded climate change deniers capitalise on lack of preciseness is the subject for another paper at some other time.

Let me answer the question above.  We have a lot of scientific evidence to support the analysis of what starts the warming for the rapid temperature increase and ensuing start of an interglacial period.  Not much has been documented about how the tail end, the cooling is forced.  Melankovitch  cycles are a major part of it, but I suggest that they need augmentation.  The juxtaposition of the planet’s angle to the sun’s radiation and  the sun’s distance do decrease, but these factors don’t appear to be able in themselves decrease the CO2 content and thus decrease the greenhouse effect.  So what does?

Trees.  Yes, billions of trees, bushes and tall grass that slowly follow the melting glaciers northward in the northern hemisphere and southward in the southern hemisphere.  This vegetation not only sucks up tons of CO2 but from transpiration helps form significant cloud cover whose overall effect is to increase the deflection of the sun’s radiation more than their addition to the greenhouse effect.  Could we look back at the endings of previous interglacial periods, we would see these billions of trees and miles of long grass and savannah constantly pulling CO2 from the atmosphere; reducing the greenhouse effect adding to the decreased insolation and thereby causing a sudden tipping point for the temperature decline. The complete halt in forest harvesting and massive planting is simply the least expensive and most overall beneficial action that could be taken to mitigate the effects of the greenhouse effect. There are now sacred cows in India; there could be sacred trees worldwide.

Skeptical Science flattens deniers: 97% of peer-reviewed papers say humans causing climate change

This article is fully supported with links to the supporting data.  Hopefully, John Cook has helped us all to utterly dismiss the misconstrued and sometimes utterly false claims of those anthropogenic climate change deniers. I for one am sick of hearing the drivel.  I felt it necessary to read it in association with genetically modified food only to find that there were a few “scientists” who were paid to falsify and construe what they could find as detractions.  I am aware that some of those same people are now employed to do the same shameless job with climate change.  Much of the blame for the false impressions on this subject has to be placed with some of the “media” who give equal time to detractors as if there was an equal chance that they may be right.  Most of us have learned that “the media” by and large are only interested in sales and care less about fairness, truth and the art of conveying news.

Unfortunately, so many people make up their minds based on false information and then proceed forever with a close mind on the issue.  That’s why character assignation is accomplished with a lie that gets published and then an apology printed on page 16 in small print.  People tend to remember the lie and either never see the retraction or apology or will not read further.  They “know” because they read it in the newspaper or some magazine. A good friend of mine taught me that whenever reading something controversial, stop and look into just who is doing the assertions.  Find out who finances them – who do they serve.  Find out who tends to gain from their point of view.  People with set opinions look for someone to agree with them and then crystalize on their false knowledge like a nut that must never be cracked to see if the kernel is edible.

Their lives are crammed with precious nuts that cannot feed them when the kernels are needed.  By then it is too late and they have invested their vital energy in that which does not serve them.  Surely it is normal that we change as we age, as we experience the new and different, as we suffer and recover from tragedy and disappointments. We learn to regularly examine our truth nuts, crack open a few to see if they are still serviceable.  The most difficult student is one who already knows.

When you give people the impression that you are not completely sure about something then you get their take which, surprisingly, often reveals something you overlooked or misunderstood. Actually, most people feel positively stroked when they get an opportunity to explain their opinions. It is a win-win because they feel good about informing you and you might just learn something.

Hopefully, anthropogenic climate change deniers now lack an audience.

Daily KOS

THU MAY 16, 2013

Skeptical Science flattens deniers: 97% of peer-reviewed papers say humans causing climate change

By Meteor Blades

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/16/1209402/-Skeptical-Science-flattens-deniers-97-of-peer-reviewed-papers-say-humans-causing-climate-

Nowadays, television news shows and newspaper and magazine articles that mention global warming rarely resort to outright lies like this grotesque piece of propaganda from Forbes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/

“In fact, not all scientists do agree that humans are causing global warming. As researchers under the guidance of John Cook at Skeptical Science discovered in a “citizen science” survey of 11,944 peer-reviewed articles, 1.6 percent of the authors expressing an opinion on the subject rejected or were uncertain about the consensus that the earth is undergoing anthropogenic (human-generated) global warming (AGW). And 97.1 percent of the nearly 4,000 articles in which the author(s) took a position endorsed the AGW consensus. (The survey was published May 15 in Environmental Research Letters as an open access article)”

A video

http://bcove.me/c1li8rcl

The Phony ‘Debate’ Over Climate Change

For the past 21 years there’s been broad consensus among climate scientists that humans are significantly changing global temperatures.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/06/07/op-ed-climate-change-consensus

June 11, 2013   John Cook

“This misperception has persisted for several decades and hasn’t happened by accident. There has been a deliberate, focused attempt to confuse the public about the level of agreement between scientists for over 20 years.

In 1991, Western Fuels Association spent half a million dollars on a campaign attacking the scientific consensus. Political pollster Frank Luntz advised Republicans to focus on casting doubt on consensus in a memo leaked in 2002. A 2012 analysis of conservative syndicated columns found that the number one climate myth promoted by conservative columnists was “there is no scientific consensus.”

Why such a focus on attacking the consensus? Studies in 2011 and2013 found that when the public correctly understands that scientists agree on climate change, it is more likely to support policy to do something about it.

Social scientists are coming to realize what opponents of climate action have known for decades. If you confuse the public about scientific consensus, you can delay meaningful climate action.”

Ignorance is a terrible thing but hiding the truth is even worse.