Important climate change warning

[LittleLebowski]

47645

[RoyGBiv]

Thanks for the heads up Greta :cool:

[SecondsCount]

I remember being at my parent's house in the early 90's and they had the Discovery Channel on. The show was talking about global warming and by 2010 we would see massive chaos due to the change in climate.

[MVS]

I am happy the Earth is still hear with all of the predicted disasters even just in my lifetime. Ice age, killer bees, acid rain, running out of oil, polar ice caps melting and turning us into a Kevin Costner Waterworld (that movie alone could have spawned global disaster), there have been so many sure things come and go.

[ranger]

I though we were supposed to be dead due to overpopulation by now?

[farscott]

As the finance people say, "past performance is not a guarantee of future results." Predicting the future is tough, especially with a system with so many variables.

[Borderland]

I though we were supposed to be dead due to overpopulation by now?

Climate change was held up by the Obama administration. No overpopulation in the forecast any longer. Trump fixed it. :D

[LittleLebowski]

I though we were supposed to be dead due to overpopulation by now?

We've already died from starvation :(

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year-3/

[LittleLebowski]

As the finance people say, "past performance is not a guarantee of future results." Predicting the future is tough, especially with a system with so many variables.

The only prediction I'll make is that the climate change people will be proven wrong again in 10 years.

[Borderland]

The only prediction I'll make is that the climate change people will be proven wrong again in 10 years.


That's a pretty safe bet.

When the giant meteor I keep hearing about hits the earth that's going to change a lot of climate predictions.

[JTQ]

I often wonder, if global warming actually happens, what effect it will have on all the productive workers in northern climates like the northern US plain states, Canada, and Russia that would now have longer growing seasons.

I suspect we'd have more food rather than less.

[ralph]

The only prediction I'll make is that the climate change people will be proven wrong again in 10 years.

I wouldn’t give them that long..I think they’re being proven wrong right now...But it doesn’t matter, they’ll probably revert back to their other wealth transfer scheme, now that people aren’t buying the global warming crap... WERE ALL GOING TO FREEZE TO DEATH!!!!! 😜

[Borderland]

I often wonder, if global warming actually happens, what effect it will have on all the productive workers in northern climates like the northern US plain states, Canada, and Russia that would now have longer growing seasons.

I suspect we'd have more food rather than less.

I think they changed global warming to climate change because it better describes the situation. But the climate has always been changing and unless you're 17 like Greta Thunberg it probably isn't going to affect you one way or the other.

North Dakota will eventually become a sanctuary state.;)

[SAWBONES]

"Climate change" and its spin-off concerns are "causes" for modern disenfranchised, foundationless moderns to become invested in, since they have nothing real to accomplish.

We have reliable scientific-geologic evidence that the climate has been changing for millions of years, sometimes dramatically, not only before the Industrial Revolution, but before (as far as we know) there were even recognizable humans around.

The evidence for significant human causality in climate change is small.
(No, I'm NOT arguing that humans don't pollute, contribute to destroying the earth's crust and all sorts of other natural resources.)

I no longer get excited over the predictions of the various Doom Prophets about climate, population, etc.

[Guerrero]

https://youtu.be/9_WHQkPrhjg

[Borderland]

"Climate change" and its spin-off concerns are "causes" for modern disenfranchised, foundationless moderns to become invested in, since they have nothing real to accomplish.

We have reliable scientific-geologic evidence that the climate has been changing for millions of years, sometimes dramatically, not only before the Industrial Revolution, but before (as far as we know) there were even recognizable humans around.

The evidence for significant human causality in climate change is small.
(No, I'm NOT arguing that humans don't pollute, contribute to destroying the earth's crust and all sorts of other natural resources.)

I no longer get excited over the predictions of the various Doom Prophets about climate, population, etc.

This is what climate change looks like. If anyone isn't a believer they need to spend a few days at Capitol Reef NP in Utah. I'm not sure how anyone can predict this.

https://i.ibb.co/BwJC6MR/CR.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

https://i.ibb.co/t2wPZYz/CR2.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

[ccmdfd]

And in a related story, today the doomsday clock was moved to its closest time 'til midnight that it's ever been, and climate change is a big reason.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/24/opinions/doomsday-clock-emergency-moon-robinson-brown-perry/index.html

[Borderland]

And in a related story, today the doomsday clock was moved to its closest time 'til midnight that it's ever been, and climate change is a big reason.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/24/opinions/doomsday-clock-emergency-moon-robinson-brown-perry/index.html

Is that anything like the Mayan calendar?

[blues]

Capitol Reef is one of my favorite places.

[Totem Polar]

The show was talking about global warming and by 2010 we would see massive chaos due to the change in climate.

If only they had thought to add the word "political" before the word climate, they’d be golden.

[0ddl0t]

To be fair, he did not say countries would flood by 2000, he said if not reversed by 2000 countries would flood. We are seeing more flooding among the most susceptible cities (Venice most recently). The data he used predicted a 1-7° rise in temperature over the next 30 years and the reality (1°) fits that window.


The evidence for significant human causality in climate change is small.
I agree that alarmists consistently overstate their cases, but alarmists are the only ones who get the headlines.

A couple years ago I looked closely at the actual historic climate data - skeptically - and calculated the probability of last century's sharp increase in temperature happening randomly at no more than 20%** (NASA, even under the current administration, says there is a 95% chance humans are contributing to climate change (https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/)). Yes, there is still a chance the temperature fluctuation is part of the noise of natural cycles, but the odds are at least as against it as going all in preflop with pocket kings against pocket aces: it is not a bet you want to make...

** As a skeptic, the main potential flaw in the prediction is the reliance on proxies for temperature. But while any individual temperature proxy (like tree ring or coral growth) can have significant error, combining hundreds of corroborating proxies greatly reduces this risk.

[UNK]

All i know is I havent had to put on my parka this year, my natural gas bill is down significantly, and the snow blower I bought last winter has never been started. Im good with that.

[0ddl0t]

All i know is I havent had to put on my parka this year, my natural gas bill is down significantly, and the snow blower I bought last winter has never been started. Im good with that.

To add to this anecdata, all I know is that despite modern firefighting ~20,000 nearby homes burned in the last 3 years -the worst fires in over a century.

[SecondsCount]

I am happy the Earth is still hear with all of the predicted disasters even just in my lifetime. Ice age, killer bees, acid rain, running out of oil, polar ice caps melting and turning us into a Kevin Costner Waterworld (that movie alone could have spawned global disaster), there have been so many sure things come and go.

Don't forget holes in the ozone from freon and styrofoam packaging!

I'm all for doing things to reduce waste and improve the environment but many of these hypocrites preaching the message have a much bigger carbon footprint than I do :rolleyes:

[UNK]

To add to this anecdata, all I know is that despite modern firefighting ~20,000 nearby homes burned in the last 3 years -the worst fires in over a century.

The keeper of big words AND you do your own climate research. WOWED 😯

[Borderland]

Don't forget holes in the ozone from freon and styrofoam packaging!

I'm all for doing things to reduce waste and improve the environment but many of these hypocrites preaching the message have a much bigger carbon footprint than I do :rolleyes:

Which makes it more political than anything else as SS stated. It's a shit show to be sure. Way overblown on both sides, pro and con.

We recycle and that's an expense for us. I don't burn wood anymore for heat either but I used to. My carbon footprint is pretty damn small compared to someone like Al Gore or some of these other climate change activists like Greta Thornburg. Jeezus, these activists need walk the walk if they're going to talk the talk.

[LittleLebowski]

To add to this anecdata, all I know is that despite modern firefighting ~20,000 nearby homes burned in the last 3 years -the worst fires in over a century.

Were said 20,000 homes in existence a century ago?

[Totem Polar]

Were said 20,000 homes in existence a century ago?


https://media1.tenor.com/images/9f7f248f52c8c3b9a7e20bc45927a8ba/tenor.gif?itemid=3345105

[TGS]

To add to this anecdata, all I know is that despite modern firefighting ~20,000 nearby homes burned in the last 3 years -the worst fires in over a century.


Were said 20,000 homes in existence a century ago?


https://media1.tenor.com/images/9f7f248f52c8c3b9a7e20bc45927a8ba/tenor.gif?itemid=3345105

This is pure gold.

ETA: I just reupped another year as a subscriber just because of how amazing this is.

[Borderland]

Were said 20,000 homes in existence a century ago?

Al Gore's 10K sq. ft. house hadn't been built yet. Maybe they need a really yuge fire in TN or better yet N. VA. :D

[RoyGBiv]

Climate changes over centuries and millennia. Comparing this year to last year is folly.

Averages include stuff at both ends of the Bell Curve.

[blues]

Al Gore's 10K sq. ft. house hadn't been built yet.

Doesn't apply. His home is contained in a "lock box".

[0ddl0t]

Were said 20,000 homes in existence a century ago?

No, but most were in place 50 years ago. And the housing density was much less than the major fires ~100 years ago in Chicago & Wisconsin.

This particular area is no stranger to wildfires and probably lost 50 homes a year on average over the preceding 50 years. Going from that to an average of 6,000/year over 3 years is significant. So too is going from a 5 year US average of 3.8 million acres/year burned in the 1950s to 7.6 million acres/year today -- despite have 30% less forested land.

Again, it is just anecdata and if you go looking for evidence to support your preconceived notion you'll find it. But the objective global data does show an alarming trend.

[RoyGBiv]

No, but most were in place 50 years ago. And the housing density was much less than the major fires ~100 years ago in Chicago & Wisconsin.

This particular area is no stranger to wildfires and probably lost 50 homes a year on average over the preceding 50 years. Going from that to an average of 6,000/year over 3 years is significant. So too is going from a 5 year US average of 3.8 million acres/year burned in the 1950s to 7.6 million acres/year today -- despite have 30% less forested land.

Again, it is just an anecdote, but the global data does show an alarming trend.
The amount of "global warming" over the past 3 years is nearly none.
Trying to tie global warming to a spike in fires over the last 3 years is full on media hype.

When was the last time your AO took care of business and allowed the removal of underbrush, deadfall and controlled burning?

[ranger]

No, but most were in place 50 years ago. And the housing density was much less than the major fires ~100 years ago in Chicago & Wisconsin.

This particular area is no stranger to wildfires and probably lost 50 homes a year on average over the preceding 50 years. Going from that to an average of 6,000/year over 3 years is significant. So too is going from a 5 year US average of 3.8 million acres/year burned in the 1950s to 7.6 million acres/year today -- despite have 30% less forested land.

Again, it is just anecdata and if you go looking for evidence to support your preconceived notion you'll find it. But the objective global data does show an alarming trend.

I would suggest that acres burned data is heavily influenced by "progressive" forestry practices. Curious where you get your "30% less forested land" data point?

[0ddl0t]

The amount of "global warming" over the past 3 years is nearly none.
Trying to tie global warming to a spike in fires over the last 3 years is full on media hype.
"global warming" contributes to regional "climate change:" rising ocean temperatures affect ocean currents which can then change local weather patterns (for better or worse). In this case, high end of normal temperatures combined with low end of normal humidity combined with extremely high winds.

Again, the probability of high temps and low humidity happening at once is not that unusual and multiplying that by the probability of extreme winds still isn't astronomical odds. But it is a definite outlier.


When was the last time your AO took care of business and allowed the removal of underbrush, deadfall and controlled burning?
There are some issues with forest management in California, but they were far from a primary cause. We're talking about fires that repeatedly jumped 4 and 6 lane highways and 300 foot rivers -- there was plenty of "defensible space" so "raking pine needles" (as suggested by commander bonespurs) would do next to nothing in the face of fire tornadoes.



. Curious where you get your "30% less forested land" data point?
The US had 423 million hectares of forest in 1700, 307 in 1900, and 302 today. California got a later start and went from ~45 million acres to 33 today, with most of that loss occurring after 1950.

[Crazy Dane]

I would suggest that acres burned data is heavily influenced by "progressive" forestry practices. Curious where you get your "30% less forested land" data point?

Couple this with the aggressive firefighting strategies and tactics and eventually your gonna have an "oops" and burn a million acres along with several thousand houses. Putting out the smaller fires that happen during wetter times and the off season just lead to bigger, hotter fires that you cant get ahead of. Just a few short years ago I helped an Australian firefighter get some better equipment and PPE because their forest service was predicting the "the big one" because of the same practices in her country..


On the bigger picture of climate change, my back still hurts from my dad making me lay in extra wood in the late 70s because the next ice age was coming. Didn't the hole in the ozone layer prevent this in the 80s or something like that?

[SecondsCount]

My sister has the Colorado Then and Now book (https://www.johnfielder.com/1870-2000/).

You can see by the pictures that the foilage and forests in the photos are much more dense now than 100 years ago.

It would seem that the proper management of the forests would be the right answer, and raking pine needles is not one of them ;)

[SAWBONES]

Pretty much all of southeastern Utah is amazing for sake of its wonderful sculpted Jurassic sandstone formations.

Having for years extensively traveled the environs surrounding or near Moab in my set-up-for-rock-crawling Jeep, I know places providing absolute solitude even during the busiest holiday periods. Love it. Sunlight reflecting off red rock lifts the heart.

Vive la wind and weather effects over eons!

[UNM1136]

Surprised no one dragged one of these stories out yet...

https://fee.org/articles/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-the-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year/

it is a hoot to read...

pat

[RoyGBiv]

Surprised no one dragged one of these stories out yet...

https://fee.org/articles/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-the-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year/

it is a hoot to read...

pat

Whatever sells newspapers. :o

[Wondering Beard]

As Instapundit says:" I'll believe it's a crisis, when the people who say it's a crisis, act like it's a crisis."

[RoyGBiv]

As Instapundit says:" I'll believe it's a crisis, when the people who say it's a crisis, act like it's a crisis."

https://thirdway.imgix.net/products/al-gore-missed-the-memo-theres-nothing-nonsensical-about-carbon-capture/al-gore-missed-memo.jpg?mtime=20181214172024&auto=format&dpr=2&crop=center&fit=crop&w=960&h=640&ixlib=react-7.2.0

[Wondering Beard]

A climate change tax measure Democrats and Republicans alike should get behind. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/10/19/glenn-reynolds-tax-blue-zones-climate-change-coastal-flooding-column/74186596/)

[TheNewbie]

If the media, academia, and the intelligentsia are panicked and worried, then I know it's nothing that actually needs to be worried about.

[Borderland]

If the media, academia, and the intelligentsia are panicked and worried, then I know it's nothing that actually needs to be worried about.

The fires in CA are nothing to worry about unless you want to live there. If people want to live in CA then they should pay to live there. That means not living in the areas that are set to burn or taking the proper precautions like buying the insurance to hire private fire crews to protect their property. 400 years ago southern CA was a desert, not parts of it, all of it, including the Imperial Valley. So now you have 20 million people living there and wondering who's going to take care of them when they get burned out or they have no more water.

So yeah, it really isn't anything to worry about unless you happen to live there, which I don't.

[txdpd]

If we laid out the time line of the earth on a football field, all 120 yards end zone to end zone. Each yard would represent 38 million years of the earth's history. About 2 yards out from the back of the starting end zone another planet slammed into the early earth, the debris from that impact formed the moon. At the 18 yard line, we start picking up signs that single cell organisms exist. Walk past the 50 yard line and to the 6 yard line at the other end and we start finding signs of complex life forms. At the 4 yard line there was the first mass extinction event. At the start of the end zone was the second mass extinction. 4 yards into the end zone was the third mass extinction, the "Great Dying", where up to 96% of the species on earth died off. Another half yard in and there was the fourth mass extinction, and where mammals started to really get a foot hold on the planet. About 1.5 yards from the back of the end zone, a giant meteor struck the Yucatan and caused the fifth mass extinction, the mass extinction we are most familiar with. 2/10" inches from the back of the end zone, homo sapiens came into there current form. In about the last 1/100" an inch human began agricultural practices. In about the last 1/160" civilization began. In the last .000001", that's twenty years, the world is going to end. The ridiculousness of thinking that someone can predict the future of the planet with that degree of accuracy, short of something like a Nuclear Holocaust, is laughable.

Edited for math corrections.....maybe.

[Totem Polar]

If we laid out the time line of the earth on a football field, all 120 yards end zone to end zone. Each yard would represent 38 million years of the earth's history. About 2 yards out from the back of the starting end zone another planet slammed into the early earth, the debris from that impact formed the moon. At the 18 yard line, we start picking up signs that single cell organisms exist. Walk past the 50 yard line and to the 6 yard line at the other end and we start finding signs of complex life forms. At the 4 yard line there was the first mass extinction event. At the start of the end zone was the second mass extinction. 4 yards into the end zone was the third mass extinction, the "Great Dying", where up to 96% of the species on earth died off. Another half yard in and there was the fourth mass extinction, and where mammals started to really get a foot hold on the planet. About 1.5 yards from the back of the end zone, a giant meteor struck the Yucatan and caused the fifth mass extinction, the mass extinction we are most familiar with. 2 inches from the back of the end zone, homo sapiens came into there current form. In about the last 1/10" of an inch human began agricultural practices. In about the last 1/16" of civilization began. In the last .0002" (6 microns), that's twenty years, the world is going to end. The ridiculousness of thinking that someone can predict the future of the planet with that degree of accuracy, short of something like a Nuclear Holocaust, is laughable.



https://media1.tenor.com/images/9f7f248f52c8c3b9a7e20bc45927a8ba/tenor.gif?itemid=3345105

[Maple Syrup Actual]

You know, I don't doubt that climate change that results directly from the burning of fossil fuels is real. In fact, I'm fairly convinced that the amount of heat energy that can be stored in the atmosphere does increase when you increase the CO2 content, and that the resulting increase in stored energy will have complicated results that include a subtle general rise in temperature, and more energetic storm behaviour, while still allowing for localized cooling trends that might confound people looking for a clear pattern. I get all that and I don't have a problem with it.

Here is where it begins to break up a little for me: I think our understanding of the inputs and outputs of the system is extremely poor. We have no idea what built-in mitigation factors might exist, but for sure there are powerful ones because the earth keeps self-balancing even when subjected to much more severe conditions.

For example, will an increase in CO2 generate massive algal blooms at sea, which we aren't really expecting or understanding because frankly our understanding of marine environments is pretty rudimentary? Will those algal blooms drift to the bottom and capture carbon more effectively than anyone imagines because again, stuff that happens at sea is really poorly recorded? Is that (among other similar effects) why the predicted floodings and shutdown of the Gulf Stream and so on and so on and so on never seem to come to fruition?


I don't disagree that we might well have an ongoing and worsening problem but I am just really unimpressed with the predictive abilities of people describing a system which I believe to be complex beyond their understanding. If you have never tuned a carburetor, the principles make it sound pretty simple. I think we have a first-day-of-shop-class grasp of the complexity of the atmosphere's interaction with the planet, and people want to use that as a basis to tune the carburetor. And while I concur that there may be an issue, I don't want to succumb to the "but we have to do SOMETHING" mentality. I think that's a big mistake, as anyone who's ever let a really green apprentice touch their carb will probably appreciate.

[LittleLebowski]

The EPA ruined carburetors in the US :(

[TheNewbie]

The fires in CA are nothing to worry about unless you want to live there. If people want to live in CA then they should pay to live there. That means not living in the areas that are set to burn or taking the proper precautions like buying the insurance to hire private fire crews to protect their property. 400 years ago southern CA was a desert, not parts of it, all of it, including the Imperial Valley. So now you have 20 million people living there and wondering who's going to take care of them when they get burned out or they have no more water.

So yeah, it really isn't anything to worry about unless you happen to live there, which I don't.

I think the issue there would be what is the cause.

[Greg]

https://thirdway.imgix.net/products/al-gore-missed-the-memo-theres-nothing-nonsensical-about-carbon-capture/al-gore-missed-memo.jpg?mtime=20181214172024&auto=format&dpr=2&crop=center&fit=crop&w=960&h=640&ixlib=react-7.2.0

I miss Rodney Dangerfield. Funny bastard.

[FNFAN]

If you make a time line and consider:

Earth is roughly 4,500,000,000 years old
If each year is represented by an inch
The timeline is 71,022 miles long
The Great Lakes were formed by a glacier over 1/2 miles thick about 15,000 years ago.
Think about it.
15,000 years ago a sheet of ice half a mile thick, dug out the Great Lakes and then melted.
If you mark that on our time line it was less than 1/4th of a mile back along the 71,022 mile timeline
If the Industrial Age started in 1750 and it's 2020 now
The Industrial Age represents the last 22.5 feet of the 71,022 mile timeline

Does anyone really believe that we are responsible for the climate change due to the Industrial Age with so many obvious representations of how the Earth's climate changes naturally? Obama was very active on climate change, rising sea levels etc. Yet he just bought a mansion in Martha's Vineyard with 29 waterfront acres abutting a tidal pond that opens to the sea about three times each year. Do you think he's worried about the rising sea level and just wants to "monitor things?"

[Borderland]

I think the issue there would be what is the cause.

Drought, more than likely. But CA has had 9 major droughts that were recorded. The latest was pretty severe and climate change probably made it worse. But again, climate change is ongoing.

[SecondsCount]

The EPA ruined carburetors in the US :(

I've rebuilt/tuned quite a few of them. Fuel injection killed them and for this I am glad.

[0ddl0t]

If you make a time line and consider:

Earth is roughly 4,500,000,000 years old
If each year is represented by an inch
The timeline is 71,022 miles long
The Great Lakes were formed by a glacier over 1/2 miles thick about 15,000 years ago.
Think about it.
15,000 years ago a sheet of ice half a mile thick, dug out the Great Lakes and then melted.
If you mark that on our time line it was less than 1/4th of a mile back along the 71,022 mile timeline
If the Industrial Age started in 1750 and it's 2020 now
The Industrial Age represents the last 22.5 feet of the 71,022 mile timeline

Does anyone really believe that we are responsible for the climate change due to the Industrial Age with so many obvious representations of how the Earth's climate changes naturally?

Do you really think 95% of scientists have never considered the possibility that the climate can change naturally? We're not just talking about change, we're talking about what is very likely an unprecedented rate of change.

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/earth_temperature_timeline_2x.png

[FNFAN]

Do you really think 95% of scientists have never considered the possibility that the climate can change naturally? We're not just talking about change, we're talking about what is very likely an unprecedented rate of change.

That is a great image and I thank you for posting it. I'll have to mull it over. The figures I've seen mentioned speculate that with total immediate cessation of the use of fossil fuels, temperature reduction would be in the range of a few 10ths of a degree over the next century. What have you seen mentioned along those lines and do you think that is a viable course of action? What should we do?

I note that you use the term "very likely." What keeps you from using more "absolute" terms regarding the change being unprecedented? Again, thanks for the image and your overall tone of discussion!

[0ddl0t]

The figures I've seen mentioned speculate that with total immediate cessation of the use of fossil fuels, temperature reduction would be in the range of a few 10ths of a degree over the next century. What have you seen mentioned along those lines and do you think that is a viable course of action?
I'm less comfortable with future predictions than with the past because there are so many variables at play. Most past predictions have overestimated the effects largely due to the earth's seeming ability to self-regulate to some extent. For instance, when ocean temperatures rise more water evaporates and creates clouds and clouds do a pretty good job reflecting the sun's rays, cooling off. Likewise as glaciers melt they often leave behind lush land that increases carbon sequestration. And if the polar ice caps melt, the earth's rotation will probably change in ways that affect how much of the sun's energy the earth absorbs.

That said, my best guess is that even if we immediately stopped emitting carbon temperatures will still rise over the next 50-100 years. I imagine it like being on the interstate and taking your foot off the gas -- you coast for a while before coming to a stop.



What should we do?
I think the most rational course of action is to prepare for less hospitable weather in the future. I do not see all of mankind having the will to make the kinds of changes that would otherwise be considered best practice. Part of that is basic fairness: the US and western world benefited from 150 years of cheap hydrocarbons -- we built our societies on it. Is it really fair to cut off India and China's rapid industrial growth before they get a chance to catch up?



I note that you use the term "very likely." What keeps you from using more "absolute" terms regarding the change being unprecedented? Again, thanks for the image and your overall tone of discussion!
The largest source of uncertainty is in historic temperature measurement. Mankind has had accurate thermometers for only 300 years and they were widely used only in the last 150 or so years. So scientists have to resort to proxies for temperature: tree rings, coral reef growth, ice cores, etc. These are imperfect: sometimes trees grow quickly even when it is cold (or slowly when it is hot). Each proxy has a range of error. By using multiple proxies, you reduce the errors, but the possible range of temperature is still wide.

Here is the famous "hockey stick" graph from the late 1990s with the grey/light blue zone being the extremes possible and the dark blue & green lines being predicted actual temperatures:

47691

You can see that it is technically possible that from ~1125 to ~1175 and from ~1450 to ~1500 the earth may have had as sharp of a temperature change as it has in the last 50 years. It is unlikely - that would mean going from one extreme outlier immediately to the other - but it is within the range of possibilities.

[Borderland]

I've rebuilt/tuned quite a few of them. Fuel injection killed them and for this I am glad.

The first experience I had with fuel injection (rail, not throttle body) was an 85 Toyota pickup. I new then carburetors had seen their final days. Reduced pollution considerably because engines became more efficient.

[Kanye Wyoming]

Apropos the hockey stick, this is a worthwhile 20 minutes.

If you only read the sports section when your team has won, the science will be settled that your team is undefeated.


https://youtu.be/K_8xd0LCeRQ

[Kanye Wyoming]

This is pure gold.

ETA: I just reupped another year as a subscriber just because of how amazing this is.
Yup. Me too.

[BehindBlueI's]

The EPA ruined carburetors in the US :(

Did you tap that onto your screen with a stone chisel?

[blues]

Did you tap that onto your screen with a stone chisel?

I remember the old "carburetors" in use during the 60's and 70's...

https://www.dhresource.com/600x600/f2/albu/g9/M00/55/93/rBVaWFwnUh-Ad9A8AAEviyOPjpA065.jpg

Of course I have no personal first hand knowledge...

[0ddl0t]

Apropos the hockey stick, this is a worthwhile 20 minutes.

If you only read the sports section when your team has won, the science will be settled that your team is undefeated.


https://youtu.be/K_8xd0LCeRQ

Yes, climatologists have overstated their case and likely underestimate their uncertainty.

About 10 years ago - after climategate - two statistics professors (one from Northwestern, the other from University of Pennsylvania) reviewed the actual data and applied various techniques and ultimately determined:

"While our results agree with the climate scientists findings in some respects, our methods of estimating model uncertainty and accuracy are in sharp disagreement."

You can find plenty of sharp criticism of Mann & others, but you can also find support that there is a good chance 1998 was the warmest year up to that point and that the 2000s were the warmest decade: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1104.4002

47699

[Tom Duffy]

Do you really think 95% of scientists have never considered the possibility that the climate can change naturally? We're not just talking about change, we're talking about what is very likely an unprecedented rate of change.

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/earth_temperature_timeline_2x.png

Thanks for posting this. I remember when it was first published on XKCD. Not that posting it will have much effect on this thread. :(

[Kanye Wyoming]

Yes, climatologists have overstated their case and likely underestimate their uncertainty.

About 10 years ago - after climategate - two statistics professors (one from Northwestern, the other from University of Pennsylvania) reviewed the actual data and applied various techniques and ultimately determined:

"While our results agree with the climate scientists findings in some respects, our methods of estimating model uncertainty and accuracy are in sharp disagreement."

You can find plenty of sharp criticism of Mann & others, but you can also find support that there is a good chance 1998 was the warmest year up to that point and that the 2000s were the warmest decade: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1104.4002
So:

We’re not really confident our models show that an increase in concealed carry permits correlates to an increase in shootings, but we shall proclaim confidently that it does correlate, that the correlation is settled, and therefore urgent action is needed NOW towards our political objective of prohibiting civilian gun ownership.


https://youtu.be/EfPfzo7wpC4

And what about that forest in northern Quebec?

[Totem Polar]

I’m willing to give that long infographic a fair shake.

Mostly because the authors threw in a dope "spinal tap" reference, so I know they’re not total beakers.

I really am undecided on all of this. Or more likely, sort of where Misanthropist (who now has generational skin in the game) is. Anyone who’s lived in and out of the same region where they grew up for a decent lifespan knows that the weather is getting weird. But I’m skeptical as to the level of our collective understanding as to the long-term ‘what’s,’ let alone the ‘whys.’

[11B10]

I remember the old "carburetors" in use during the 60's and 70's...

https://www.dhresource.com/600x600/f2/albu/g9/M00/55/93/rBVaWFwnUh-Ad9A8AAEviyOPjpA065.jpg

Of course I have no personal first hand knowledge...



Head Hear!

Gotta agree - I "heard" the same thing.

[AMC]

My problem with the infographic is the absence of the Younger Dryas period, it's sudden appearance and end, the correlation with the massive die off of Northern Hemisphere (especially North American) megafauna, and the geologic impact on North America....not to mention the disappearance of the Clovis culture at that time. I fear that climate change is a real, cyclical, ongoing occurrence that has causes entirely unrelated to "carbon emissions", and that we are likely still largely helpless to prevent.

[Borderland]

I’m willing to give that long infographic a fair shake.

Mostly because the authors threw in a dope "spinal tap" reference, so I know they’re not total beakers.

I really am undecided on all of this. Or more likely, sort of where Misanthropist (who now has generational skin in the game) is. Anyone who’s lived in and out of the same region where they grew up for a decent lifespan knows that the weather is getting weird. But I’m skeptical as to the level of our collective understanding as to the long-term ‘what’s,’ let alone the ‘whys.’

Natures way of thinning the herd. Think of it as a warm boot.

[Totem Polar]

Natures way of thinning the herd. Think of it as a warm boot.

I was going to go with "Zeus hurling lightning bolts at CA because of serial lowball special effects budgeting for greek mythos films over the last 50 years," but yeah, ‘nature’ is probably a better working theory.

https://cdn.britannica.com/48/176348-050-69B79098/Todd-Armstrong-Jason-and-the-Argonauts-Don.jpg

[FNFAN]

I'm less comfortable with future predictions than with the past because there are so many variables at play. Most past predictions have overestimated the effects largely due to the earth's seeming ability to self-regulate to some extent. For instance, when ocean temperatures rise more water evaporates and creates clouds and clouds do a pretty good job reflecting the sun's rays, cooling off. Likewise as glaciers melt they often leave behind lush land that increases carbon sequestration. And if the polar ice caps melt, the earth's rotation will probably change in ways that affect how much of the sun's energy the earth absorbs.

That said, my best guess is that even if we immediately stopped emitting carbon temperatures will still rise over the next 50-100 years. I imagine it like being on the interstate and taking your foot off the gas -- you coast for a while before coming to a stop.


I think the most rational course of action is to prepare for less hospitable weather in the future. I do not see all of mankind having the will to make the kinds of changes that would otherwise be considered best practice. Part of that is basic fairness: the US and western world benefited from 150 years of cheap hydrocarbons -- we built our societies on it. Is it really fair to cut off India and China's rapid industrial growth before they get a chance to catch up?


The largest source of uncertainty is in historic temperature measurement. Mankind has had accurate thermometers for only 300 years and they were widely used only in the last 150 or so years. So scientists have to resort to proxies for temperature: tree rings, coral reef growth, ice cores, etc. These are imperfect: sometimes trees grow quickly even when it is cold (or slowly when it is hot). Each proxy has a range of error. By using multiple proxies, you reduce the errors, but the possible range of temperature is still wide.

Here is the famous "hockey stick" graph from the late 1990s with the grey/light blue zone being the extremes possible and the dark blue & green lines being predicted actual temperatures:

47691

You can see that it is technically possible that from ~1125 to ~1175 and from ~1450 to ~1500 the earth may have had as sharp of a temperature change as it has in the last 50 years. It is unlikely - that would mean going from one extreme outlier immediately to the other - but it is within the range of possibilities.

Thank you again for your replies. I've seen the 'hockey stick' graph before. I've looked at both pro and anti warming sites as well as sites talking about the use of climate change as a stalking horse or means of funding the global governance initiatives. It's an interesting quandary with many factions in play.

I'm a skeptic but also have an interest in never returning to "rivers that catch on fire" like we had in the 70's as I have grandchildren. It's funny that when Obama was first campaigning, he was pro-CNG for the private vehicle fleet and as soon as he was in, that idea was never heard again and we went with battery technology for increasing mileage. I also think there is great potential for moving away from traditional power generation by advances in nuclear power technology.

Again, I appreciate your time and the information!

[willie]

Unfortunately, the climate change debate has become polarized between liberal and conservative ideology. Hence, it is an extremely politicized debate. I hesitate to use Rush L or Al G as credible information sources.

[Default.mp3]

Thanks for posting this. I remember when it was first published on XKCD. Not that posting it will have much effect on this thread. :( When someone as obstinate as RevolverRob has given up preaching on climate change, despite that being his actual academic specialty, it really says a lot about just how entrenched people are on the issue. Remember this? https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?18187-Environmental-idiocy

Honestly, I feel like this thread is detrimental to the forum as a whole. The lead admin throws down a clickbait image, without context, and we have the majority of posters joining in the anti-CC echo chamber. This does nothing but reinforce the views of the skeptics, furtherer alienate those on this board that do believe in anthropogenic climate change, and seemingly makes obvious the forum leadership's view on a highly partisan topic.

[DoctorMemez]

47739

[blues]

When someone as obstinate as RevolverRob has given up preaching on climate change, despite that being his actual academic specialty, it really says a lot about just how entrenched people are on the issue. Remember this? https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?18187-Environmental-idiocy

Honestly, I feel like this thread is detrimental to the forum as a whole. The lead admin throws down a clickbait image, without context, and we have the majority of posters joining in the anti-CC echo chamber. This does nothing but reinforce the views of the skeptics, furtherer alienate those on this board that do believe in anthropogenic climate change, and seemingly makes obvious the forum leadership's view on a highly partisan topic.

Personally, I have no idea to what degree either side is correct and I give credit to the other members of this forum, (by and large), for having the intelligence and skepticism to be open minded either way...despite making jokes (or gallows humor) about the topic.

Besides, if you actually read RevolverRob posts, you'll realize that he's an expert on every subject under the sun and therefore take the veracity of his comments accordingly. (Sorry, RR, low hanging fruit. I mean you were the one complaining about Ellifritz having opinions about everything. ;))

[Totem Polar]

So long as we are taking things seriously, I’ll just leave this one here:

[blues]

So long as we are taking things seriously, I’ll just leave this one here:


Clearly, that one runs on gas.

[0ddl0t]

I really am undecided on all of this.

Given the data it is perfectly reasonable to have skepticism, but I see it like Pascal's wager: weigh consequences of being wrong against the reasonableness of the extra effort.

[Totem Polar]

Clearly, that one runs on gas.

A wide variety of grades too. It runs on the spectrum.

[txdpd]

Natural gas deposits can be up to 500 million years old. Coal deposits were formed about 300 million years ago. Oil deposits 65-250 million years old. About 65 million years ago the Chixculub meteor struck earth, and wiped out 75% of life on earth. (A useless tidbit is that was a fast mass extinction taking place over 1-2 million years.) Life as we know it developed in a short period time with all that carbon trapped deep under the earth. I don’t know why anyone would think putting that back in the atmosphere is anything but a bad idea, because we are delving deep into the unknown.

I don’t buy into global warming thing, I do worry about the carbon.

[JTQ]

... weigh consequences of being wrong against the reasonableness of the extra effort.
I guess most skeptics probably wonder what "the reasonableness of the extra effort" entails.

Listening to the loudest talkers on the "global warming (climate change) is going to ruin the planet in the next few years" crowd, it sounds like the use of coal, natural gas, oil, wood/dung/peat/etc., and nuclear needs to stop immediately to save the planet. If so, that's a pretty big "extra effort".

[JTQ]

Life as we know it developed in a short period time with all that carbon trapped deep under the earth. I don’t know why anyone would think putting that back in the atmosphere is anything but a bad idea, because we are delving deep into the unknown.

I don’t buy into global warming thing, I do worry about the carbon.
I don't disagree, but I notice folks concerned with the issue of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere always display carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a bar graph of percentage increase rather than showing the composition of the earth's atmosphere as a pie chart.

For instance, if a single police department adopts the .38 Super as their chosen round, the percent increase of police officers choosing the .38 Super as a duty round would be huge. However, the overall use of .38 Super as a police duty round would still be quite a bit below 1%.

[Joe in PNG]

Going back to the first post, the biggest reason people don't listen to those proposing climate change, is the fact that the climate change advocated keep pulling the same wrong "We Have (X) Years Before We Are DOOMED!!!!" BS.

If you are serious, and seriously believe it, go to work on those who keep posting this nonsense.

Because you have NO CREDIBILITY- 0, non, nil, zilch, bupkiss, null, none on this issue if you keep supporting panicy panic mongering. While it may be old, cishetwhiteparticahy, the old story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf comes to mind.

[Borderland]

Going back to the first post, the biggest reason people don't listen to those proposing climate change, is the fact that the climate change advocated keep pulling the same wrong "We Have (X) Years Before We Are DOOMED!!!!" BS.

If you are serious, and seriously believe it, go to work on those who keep posting this nonsense.

Because you have NO CREDIBILITY- 0, non, nil, zilch, bupkiss, null, none on this issue if you keep supporting panicy panic mongering. While it may be old, cishetwhiteparticahy, the old story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf comes to mind.

Greta Thornberg sounds like a boomer raging about the neighbors dog shit on her front lawn. New virus strains will probably kill more people in the next 100 years than climate change will. And so what if climate change does kill a few million people, there's always going to be something horrific to deal with like high capacity magazines :rolleyes: and Nazis.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

When someone as obstinate as RevolverRob has given up preaching on climate change, despite that being his actual academic specialty, it really says a lot about just how entrenched people are on the issue. Remember this? https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?18187-Environmental-idiocy

Honestly, I feel like this thread is detrimental to the forum as a whole. The lead admin throws down a clickbait image, without context, and we have the majority of posters joining in the anti-CC echo chamber. This does nothing but reinforce the views of the skeptics, furtherer alienate those on this board that do believe in anthropogenic climate change, and seemingly makes obvious the forum leadership's view on a highly partisan topic.

I don't know, I find this thread to be pretty typical for PFC...you have some hard no, some full buy-in, some middle ground, and lots of pretty reasonable discussion.

I'm a middle grounder and I don't feel like my opinions are not welcome. Nobody has given me any static for stating that I think the mechanism of climate change as popularly described seems probable to me. I'm sure some people disagree but I think that since I am not particularly strident about it and I am pretty open about the criticisms I have about the climate change movement, people just find me to be a reasonable person who is willing to discuss the topic.

But I don't see how anyone can blame people for their skepticism when so much of the general ideological regime we've all been living with revolves around social engineering to achieve goals most of us find repellent.

And more than most I think shooting enthusiasts know how frequently "science" has been a tool of the establishment to enforce certain constructs, and this is a particularly politicized issue so the odds of the science being reliable are worse than usual. AND we've all personally witnessed the inaccuracies of predictions for decades now. It all adds up to a very difficult pill to swallow so expecting people who have often been on the sharp end of the "scientific research" stick to just quiet down and listen to the experts is just not realistic.

And it may not even be desirable. Almost regardless of the situation, I feel better about dealing with ongoing challenges if I'm with a whole lot of cantankerous but skeptical, inquisitive, active thinkers who challenge orthodoxy and can't be bossed around than I do about being in the same situation with a whole bunch of people who are perfectly happy following directions and listening to whatever the experts told them.

I just have more faith in groups of active thinkers working to aggregate information as they encounter it than I do in specialists, particularly on topics which are broad, complex, and may include a lot of unknown variables.

Put another way, if I want Fermat's last theorem solved I'll ask mathematicians but if I want to build a civilization, I'll take a cross section of intelligent people working independently over the professional opinion of a handful of social psychologists any day, no matter what percentage of social psychologists agree with the opinion they're expressing.

[Joe in PNG]

To me, it boils down to this- I'm being told that there is a crisis severe enough that I need to surrender my life, my liberty, and my property to fix it.

Naturally, I am going to be skeptical to an extraordinary degree. I need Beyond a Reasonable Doubt- Control of the Facts or Preponderance of Evidence is not enough for this trial.

So, first of all, are the experts credible? Well, they have a history of making specific predictions of specific outcomes with specific timelines- and they have been wrong.

Are the experts objective? Well, they do get money for agreeing with a certain point of view- and are ostracized if they don't.

Are the experts acting as if they truly believe it's a threat? Not really.

[Borderland]

When someone as obstinate as RevolverRob has given up preaching on climate change, despite that being his actual academic specialty, it really says a lot about just how entrenched people are on the issue. Remember this? https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?18187-Environmental-idiocy

Honestly, I feel like this thread is detrimental to the forum as a whole. The lead admin throws down a clickbait image, without context, and we have the majority of posters joining in the anti-CC echo chamber. This does nothing but reinforce the views of the skeptics, furtherer alienate those on this board that do believe in anthropogenic climate change, and seemingly makes obvious the forum leadership's view on a highly partisan topic.

https://i.ibb.co/ss13n1T/Stop.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

[Tom Duffy]

Honestly, I feel like this thread is detrimental to the forum as a whole. The lead admin throws down a clickbait image, without context, and we have the majority of posters joining in the anti-CC echo chamber. This does nothing but reinforce the views of the skeptics, furtherer alienate those on this board that do believe in anthropogenic climate change, and seemingly makes obvious the forum leadership's view on a highly partisan topic.

Well said. When you're the moderator of the General Discussion forum, it's maybe OK to start threads on like Civil War Monuments as divisive as a thread like that turned out to be. When you run the whole show, it's no longer acceptable. You're now responsible for a pistol forum. Guess it's going to be the Gospel according to St. Rupert of Murdoch for awhile.

[Totem Polar]

One more thing about experts: they often gain their expertise by studying "at the feet" of the previous experts. While this is *clearly* a net benefit in terms actually moving all of humanity’s collective knowledge forward, it can occasionally result in generational reproduction of errors. I’ve certainly seen that in my field, since a lot of water has gone under the bridge since 1979, 1989, or even 1999. We have a lot more access to past original work, as well as current experiments via the internet; we know a lot more about acoustics; and there’s been an explosion of research on how we learn in the 2000s—and yet, there are folks who were experts at the front end of their careers in 1979 who are still at it today, turning out several generations of minted experts who reproduce their lessons as gospel, even though some of the gospel has been found in error, elsewhere.

Ultimately—getting back to Zeus for a sec (I’m reaching for a tie-in; work with me here) we are pretty sure that 95 percent of the experts in 1000bc, along with everyone else, thought that the old dude with the ops beard threw lighting at them, and on occasion came down disguised as a bull/goose/shower of gold/someone’s husband to pull a Taran Tactical on hot young things. Such can be the way of authoritarian consensus.

JMO.

ETA: #modshereareshit

[BehindBlueI's]

You know, I don't doubt that climate change that results directly from the burning of fossil fuels is real. In fact, I'm fairly convinced that the amount of heat energy that can be stored in the atmosphere does increase when you increase the CO2 content, and that the resulting increase in stored energy will have complicated results that include a subtle general rise in temperature, and more energetic storm behaviour, while still allowing for localized cooling trends that might confound people looking for a clear pattern. I get all that and I don't have a problem with it.

Here is where it begins to break up a little for me: I think our understanding of the inputs and outputs of the system is extremely poor. We have no idea what built-in mitigation factors might exist, but for sure there are powerful ones because the earth keeps self-balancing even when subjected to much more severe conditions.

That's kind of where I'm at with one modification. The human innovation factor. I'm pretty sure we would be overpopulated and facing massive food prices *if* we hadn't greatly increased crop yields. The hole in the ozone layer was reversed due to modifications in human activity. Fracking and additional oil exploration has pushed back "peak oil". That doesn't mean none of those things were in pace to happen, it just means smart people who did see the problem came up with solutions. Perhaps I'm foolish to do so, but I trust the smart people who are studying this sort of thing to have real workable solutions despite the dumb people who've been elected trying to make it a political issue. I'm also sure there will be unintended consequences to some extent.

At the end of the day, I'm not one of the smart people. I'm not one of the elected people. I am just taking someone else's word for it either way as I don't have the foundation to truly understand the underlying arguments. So who gives a shit? I certainly don't get the hair pulling over the topic being on the forum or people disagreeing. With potentially one exception, I don't think anyone here is doing anything but repeating what the people they've chosen to believe have told them. I don't think anyone here is in a position of power to do anything about it, nor do I think anyone's going to change their voting pattern because of it. So let people discuss things on a discussion board, and if you need PISTOL forum in all your PISTOL forum topics, you can ignore whole subforums and not be subjected to this at all.

[Kanye Wyoming]

Given the data it is perfectly reasonable to have skepticism, but I see it like Pascal's wager: weigh consequences of being wrong against the reasonableness of the extra effort.
This is an eminently reasonable approach. If more of those who leaned towards thinking global warming/climate change is occurring now in ways and patterns that can be differentiated from how it has occurred in history, and that it is attributable to the activities of man, took your approach – we still have a lot to learn, our models continue to evolve and are only as good as the assumptions underlying them, I understand why some can be skeptical, and we have to take a sharp and dispassionate look at the costs and consequences versus the efficacy and benefits of the remedies we propose – we would be in a very different place. Something approximating the approach of Bjorn Lomborg.

But, that’s not what we have. We have people trying to remake the way the world works in a way that invests vast powers in governments and transnational bodies at the expense of individual liberty based on apocalyptic projections none of which has come to pass, and much like Torquemada and ISIS they seek to silence/rid the world of unbelievers rather than acknowledging let alone addressing competing evidence and explanations.

I’m a lawyer so I probably can’t help myself from evaluating competing claims within the framework of a trial or an appellate argument. If an appellate judge asks the lawyer for the state in a death penalty case to reconcile an argument made by the defense, or a fact in evidence that seems inconsistent with the state’s theory, or a line of cases that seems to undercut the state’s theory, and the lawyer responds that unless this defendant is put to death millions will die, the judge is a denier, 97% of lawyers agree that the facts and the caselaw are settled, and that’s all I have to say about that, Your Honor, the judges are unlikely to be impressed with the factual or legal strength of the state’s case.

I close by noting that other information suggests the infographic you presented showing significant and unprecedented warming in recent years may not be 100% reliable. This is one of many examples.
https://notrickszone.com/2017/05/29/80-graphs-from-58-new-2017-papers-invalidate-claims-of-unprecedented-global-scale-modern-warming/#sthash.ktF0tSb7.hn3ie8f2.dpbs

Like an appellate judge, I would want the lawyer for global warming to reconcile the seemingly contrary information before putting the economy to death.

[0ddl0t]

I guess most skeptics probably wonder what "the reasonableness of the extra effort" entails.
I think that is up to each person to determine for himself. Personally, I feel having two people in a household each commute 60 miles round trip each day in 4,000 lb SUVs is unreasonable, as is keeping their 3,000 square foot home air conditioned to precisely 68° in 110° summers and 80° in 30° winters. So too is continually buying cheap chinese goods that were shipped halfway around the world that you know you'll just throw away and replace in a year or two.

But that's just me.

[blues]

I think that is up to each person to determine for himself. Personally, I feel having two people in a household each commute 60 miles round trip each day in 4,000 lb SUVs is unreasonable, as is keeping their 3,000 square foot home air conditioned to precisely 68° in 110° summers and 80° in 30° winters. So too is continually buying cheap chinese goods that were shipped halfway around the world that you know you'll just throw away and replace in a year or two.

But that's just me.

I guess if you have money to burn...

I keep it at 67 in winter and 75 in summer. And adjust if needed. Seems to work okay with the system we had installed six months ago.

[JTQ]

I think that is up to each person to determine for himself. Personally, I feel having two people in a household each commute 60 miles round trip each day in 4,000 lb SUVs is unreasonable, as is keeping their 3,000 square foot home air conditioned to precisely 68° in 110° summers and 80° in 30° winters. So too is continually buying cheap chinese goods that were shipped halfway around the world that you know you'll just throw away and replace in a year or two.

But that's just me.
I don't disagree with you. It's not something I do, and would recommend folks not do that either. However, I'm pretty sure that's not the level of participation the save the planet folks are demanding.

I still recall my college "Physics for Dummies" (not the class title, but essentially what it was) professor commenting on nuclear energy. "It may not be the best solution, but we can use it until we find something better, and it will allow us to find something better."

If we have to immediately stop using coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, etc., as the far left have told us we need to do to save the planet, we're largely back to the 18th Century. That's a pretty big price to pay for a maybe outcome.

[0ddl0t]

I think nuclear is better than most other forms of energy, but there is no such thing as truly "clean" energy. Hydroelectric dams heat & divert water, killing fish and that ripples through the ecosystem; wind kills birds and take tremendous energy to install in the first place; solar panels require even more energy & dirty materials to create (though they make more energy in return) and they because they absorb solar energy that often would have been reflected they increase local temperatures.

That's why I bang my head on the wall when I see supposed eco-friendly folks commuting from the valley to the big city in their Tesla SUVs and living like their energy poo doesn't stink.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

That's kind of where I'm at with one modification. The human innovation factor. I'm pretty sure we would be overpopulated and facing massive food prices *if* we hadn't greatly increased crop yields. The hole in the ozone layer was reversed due to modifications in human activity. Fracking and additional oil exploration has pushed back "peak oil". That doesn't mean none of those things were in pace to happen, it just means smart people who did see the problem came up with solutions. Perhaps I'm foolish to do so, but I trust the smart people who are studying this sort of thing to have real workable solutions despite the dumb people who've been elected trying to make it a political issue. I'm also sure there will be unintended consequences to some extent.


No arguments here, technological innovation is what's resolved everything so far. There was a time when Peak Whale was coming, and if we'd dealt with it by restricting society only to the level of development that could have been supported by sustainable whale oil harvesting, instead of racing forward and looking for denser, more profitable energy sources, we'd be a lot worse off than we are. I'm not going to go off about it right now but all of human civilization is essentially the search for increasingly dense energy storage media, beginning with food and mass human labour and progressing through hydraulic power via rivers, wood, charcoal, whale oil, coal, and oil and all the machinery we can run with them. Right now we're in the phase where we haven't quite worked out the leap to nuclear fuel. But that will happen, and if we don't handcuff the West, this is where it will happen.

Handcuff the West and these developments will emerge in the East and that's going to be worse for everybody.

[txdpd]

There was a time when Peak Whale was coming, and if we'd dealt with it by restricting society only to the level of development that could have been supported by sustainable whale oil harvesting, instead of racing forward and looking for denser, more profitable energy sources, we'd be a lot worse off than we are.

But that’s not what happened. By the time whaling was banned by the endangered species act in the 70’s the prime demand for whale oil, actually an ester, was automotive transmission and differential fluids. We can find news articles from the mid 70’s where Detroit was saying don’t blame us for your transmission problems, it’s the government that banned whale oil. Banning whale oil was a pretty big step backwards, automatic transmission development got set back by almost 20 years.

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/17/archives/transmission-problems-in-cars-linked-to-ban-on-whale-killing.html

Despite at least 20 years of warnings, Detroit ignored all the warning signs about the inevitable end of whale oils. The government just turned the spigot off and didn’t provide any transition period. It’s a history lesson worth looking at, especially since we have a better understanding of the environmental impact of building cars. Fossil fuels will come to an end. On the climate change debate, on side is in denial about the finite nature of fossil fuels and the other is in in denial about the catastrophic consequences of just turning off the tap. Neither side has a plan to transition to alternative sources over the next 50 or 100 years.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Niche uses of whale oil don't really negate the fact that it was supplanted by a more readily available, energy-dense medium.

We didn't keep using whale oil for a major energy source into the 1970s. We replaced it with something better a long time prior.

We'll keep using fossil fuels for plastics manufacturing long after burning it to keep warm seems insane.

[Joe in PNG]

Another consideration. With the testimony of history that massive, centrally planned economic systems don't work, why is the most commonly proposed solution to the problem a massive, centrally planned economy?

PJ O'Rourke once pointed out that when it became absolutely plain that massive, centrally planned economies aren't working out when it came to the original state goal of Bettering The Lot Of The Workers Of The World, a change happened. Now it is the Urgent Need to Save The Planet- via massive, centrally planned economy.

But, consider the horrific environmental record of all the various People's Democratic Republics- it's horrific. For some odd reason, a system that relies on coerced labor and no real ownership tends to be fairly incompetent at building environmentally safe things, and not just nuclear power plants.

It's as if one referred you to a surgeon, and you find out that all his patients die of horribly painful and lingering complications afterwards. Why the hell would someone even consider him?

Yet, the same failed massive, centrally planned economic solutions are still in vogue with the Democratic Party- witness AOC's Green New Deal. The reason why has nothing to do with actually saving the environment, and everything to do with power grabs.

And everyone defending this course of action is a sucker, a dupe, a useful idiot.

[Totem Polar]

Niche uses of whale oil don't really negate the fact that it was supplanted by a more readily available, energy-dense medium.

We didn't keep using whale oil for a major energy source into the 1970s. We replaced it with something better a long time prior.

We'll keep using fossil fuels for plastics manufacturing long after burning it to keep warm seems insane.

This is true. Samuel Kier and Edwin Drake pretty much saved the whales in the late 1850s before it became a slogan in the 30s and 60s. I only know this because of folkloric music traditions out of Australia.

Come to think of it, the ultimate hipster lube for mil-spec 1911s has got to be vintage sperm whale oil.


http://byronbayhistoricalsociety.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Byrond-1-1024x684.jpg

[LittleLebowski]

When someone as obstinate as RevolverRob has given up preaching on climate change, despite that being his actual academic specialty, it really says a lot about just how entrenched people are on the issue. Remember this? https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?18187-Environmental-idiocy

Honestly, I feel like this thread is detrimental to the forum as a whole. The lead admin throws down a clickbait image, without context, and we have the majority of posters joining in the anti-CC echo chamber. This does nothing but reinforce the views of the skeptics, furtherer alienate those on this board that do believe in anthropogenic climate change, and seemingly makes obvious the forum leadership's view on a highly partisan topic.

If you knew ToddG at all, you’d know he never hesitated to inform people about his opinions. I thought the picture was a funny and true commentary regarding the climate change scaremongering and it was posted in a non tech forum , furthermore I know for a fact that admins/mods here were always allowed to have opinions. I will pretty much allow any opinion on here and I’ve proven that many times. I’m proud of the atmosphere here and I know for a fact that forum participation and numbers are up.

However if you feel like this is a bad place because I have an opinion you disagree with, let me know and I’ll refund your membership due. Default.mp3. Would you be complaining if I posted something supporting anthropogenic caused warming theory?

[Default.mp3]

If you knew ToddG at all, you’d know he never hesitated to inform people about his opinions. I thought the picture was a funny and true commentary the scaremongering and it was posted in a non tech forum , furthermore I know for a fact that admins/mods here were always allowed to have opinions. I will pretty much allow any opinion on here and I’ve proven that many times. I’m proud of the atmosphere here and I know for a fact that forum participation and numbers are up.

However if you feel like this is a bad place because I have an opinion you disagree with, let me know and I’ll refund your membership due. @Default.mp3 (https://pistol-forum.com/member.php?u=1132). Would you be complaining if I posted something supporting anthropogenic caused warming theory?It was posted in GD, rather than RR, or the Meme thread; the fact that it wasn't was irksome to me because clearly it's a contentious topic, so if debate was goal, throw it in RR. If it was just for shits and giggles, why not just put it in the Meme thread rather than make its own thread?

I would certainly hope that I would be principled enough to bitch if you had thrown in clickbait that was pro anthropogenic climate change. I don't particularly care that it was anti-climate change so much that it was a drive-by with no thought, from something that was debunked, from the admin.

If I thought this was a shit place, I would just stop participating. I spoke up specifically because I find PF to be the best firearms-oriented forum that I participate in, and I would like it to stay that way.

[LittleLebowski]

It was posted in GD, rather than RR, or the Meme thread; the fact that it wasn't was irksome to me because clearly it's a contentious topic, so if debate was goal, throw it in RR. If it was just for shits and giggles, why not just put it in the Meme thread rather than make its own thread?

I would certainly hope that I would be principled enough to bitch if you had thrown in clickbait that was pro anthropogenic climate change. I don't particularly care that it was anti-climate change so much that it was a drive-by with no thought, from something that was debunked, from the admin.

If I thought this was a shit place, I would just stop participating. I spoke up specifically because I find PF to be the best firearms-oriented forum that I participate in, and I would like it to stay that way.

You’re just gonna have to deal with me if you want to stay here. Sometimes I put thought in my posts, other times I might find a picture that says it all to me such as that picture of a real article.

[Kanye Wyoming]

#mOdShErEaReShIt (https://pistol-forum.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=mOdShErEaReShIt)

[JDD]

47645

This stuff that is already happening?

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/pcmsc/science/low-lying-areas-tropical-pacific-islands?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

Although, while the island micronations are the first ones to see the impact (and will be the first ones to become uninhabitable), the bigger risk is the saltwater intrusion in places like Bangladesh.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/02/17/salinity-intrusion-in-changing-climate-scenario-will-hit-coastal-bangladesh-hard

Changes in the water table are gradual right up to the point where the water is not drinkable or suitable for cultivation. Dhaka is the most densely populated city in the world, and is rapidly growing, in part because loss of viable land in the coastal regions forces folks inland. When that point hits the city, there will probably be some sort of regional conflict over resources.

The DoD has been incorporating climate change into their planning for quite some time, and both increasingly extreme weather events, and regional conflict caused by climate change are significant considerations that have already forced actions. The next round of worldwide conflicts is going to be driven by the need for fresh water unless we figure out some low energy ways to produce fresh water (or at least, water suitable for agriculture) in a hurry.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/climate-change-threat-military-security

I also note, that worldbank, USGS, and the DoD are not bastions of hippy tree hugger environmentalists. These are organizations that exist in the real world, that have to address problems they way actually are and not the way that someone wants them to be.

In the same way that I would love for there to not be assholes out there that want to harm me and mine, I would love for climate change to not be an issue. Unfortunately, I have to carry a gun because there are predators out there, and I am concerned about the environment of the world that my newborn son is going to grow up in.

[Joe in PNG]

Again, the biggest problem is that the solution proposed by large government agencies (basically, more power to the large government agencies) isn't actually a solution.
This would make it all absolutely positively 100% guaranteed worse.

It will make the problems with the environment worse.
It will make your life, and your children's life much, much worse.
It will make the lives of the people in potentially affected areas worse.

[LittleLebowski]

I’ve never seen such a perfect example of moving goal posts.

[Borderland]

Again, the biggest problem is that the solution proposed by large government agencies (basically, more power to the large government agencies) isn't actually a solution.
This would make it all absolutely positively 100% guaranteed worse.

It will make the problems with the environment worse.
It will make your life, and your children's life much, much worse.
It will make the lives of the people in potentially affected areas worse.

That seems to be a very real problem here in the west with federal agencies. When local restrictions are needed they usually happen thru state gov't. People making policy in WA without having any real knowledge of local conditions burns my ass. Lots of the land here is private and state owned. The state has competent staff to address the problems and make necessary changes. The politics of federal agencies is far removed from me, but I do get to vote on the governor and legislators that appoint and approve our commissioners.

To the point, federal mandates for things like renewable fuel (ethanol) has done more damage than good.

https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-fuel-foolishness

The federal gov't needs to get a lot smaller, not bigger.

[BehindBlueI's]

It was posted in GD, rather than RR, or the Meme thread; the fact that it wasn't was irksome to me because clearly it's a contentious topic, so if debate was goal, throw it in RR. If it was just for shits and giggles, why not just put it in the Meme thread rather than make its own thread?

If that was the case, the best course of action would probably have just been to suggest moving it to the Romper Room. I'm pretty sure LL or I would have obliged. Your original post was nothing like "wrong subforum" but more like "where's this forum going, and what's with this giant handbasket?"

[JTQ]

As the planet warms the human body cools.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229715-humans-are-cooling-down-so-average-body-temperature-is-no-longer-37c/

Human adaptation or merely the way data is collected?

[blues]

Is it warm in here or is it just me?

[NickA]

Is it warm in here or is it just me?Like Dennis Miller once said regarding climate change, "Eh, I'm always a little cold anyway." [emoji41]

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[LittleLebowski]

Niche uses of whale oil don't really negate the fact that it was supplanted by a more readily available, energy-dense medium.

We didn't keep using whale oil for a major energy source into the 1970s. We replaced it with something better a long time prior.

We'll keep using fossil fuels for plastics manufacturing long after burning it to keep warm seems insane.

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/91b9f073-cedd-49d0-bd8e-8259e57b7ef7

[BehindBlueI's]

As the planet warms the human body cools.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229715-humans-are-cooling-down-so-average-body-temperature-is-no-longer-37c/

Human adaptation or merely the way data is collected?

Well, per the article likely unrelated:


“The most likely explanation in my view is that, microbiologically, we’re very different people than we were,” says Parsonnet. Modern people have fewer infections, thanks to vaccines and antibiotics, so our immune systems are less active and our body tissues less inflamed. If that is true, body temperatures should also have fallen in other countries where people’s health has improved.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229715-humans-are-cooling-down-so-average-body-temperature-is-no-longer-37c/#ixzz6CX5RvVwG

On a side note, I wonder if this is related to the studies showing we're slightly fatter than our fairly recent ancestors even when calories consumed and activity is accounted for. If we're cooler our resting metabolism rates are a bit lower.

[cmoore]

The main science associated with climate change is political science.

From an old Tommy James song...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O0zKMlFl8k

[OlongJohnson]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45584-3

Article projecting reductions in temperature through ~2055, followed by increase of up to 2.5 *C by 2600, independent of human activity.

Anyone know enough science to comment productively?

Rush Limbaugh posted about it yesterday, apparently.

[Borderland]

Deleted.. too political.:D

[OlongJohnson]

ETA: This was a response to Borderland's deleted post.

I know with a 10 or 15 foot rise in sea level, Skagit Everything is f'ed. Like many, many other good places to live where a lot of food is grown. Don't know if it will happen in my lifetime, or if there is anything that all of humanity could do to delay it by a useful amount if we worked together.

One thing I am certain of is that all of humanity will not work together toward that goal. If there is a tragedy coming that could be prevented in some way, it will be a "tragedy of the commons" and we are inescapably in it.

[Borderland]

ETA: This was a response to Borderland's deleted post.

I know with a 10 or 15 foot rise in sea level, Skagit Everything is f'ed. Like many, many other good places to live where a lot of food is grown. Don't know if it will happen in my lifetime, or if there is anything that all of humanity could do to delay it by a useful amount if we worked together.

One thing I am certain of is that all of humanity will not work together toward that goal. If there is a tragedy coming that could be prevented in some way, it will be a "tragedy of the commons" and we are inescapably in it.

I deleted that post because the link was to a website that was a little strange.

Here's the content I was after.


https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Milankovitch/milankovitch_3.php

[Clusterfrack]

A solution that doesn’t fight human nature: climate engineering. We can fix this. Humans are smart. Carbon sequestration, atmospheric injection, and things we haven’t thought of yet can offset carbon emissions until solar and nuclear power catch up.

[Borderland]

ETA: This was a response to Borderland's deleted post.

I know with a 10 or 15 foot rise in sea level, Skagit Everything is f'ed. Like many, many other good places to live where a lot of food is grown. Don't know if it will happen in my lifetime, or if there is anything that all of humanity could do to delay it by a useful amount if we worked together.

One thing I am certain of is that all of humanity will not work together toward that goal. If there is a tragedy coming that could be prevented in some way, it will be a "tragedy of the commons" and we are inescapably in it.

This is timely. Looks like you're in the area.

I'll have to check but I'm thinking that we just got about 4 inches of rain in a few days and it's still raining. I've been at my current location for 25 years and I measure the rain amount by accumulation in the ditch in front of my neighbors house. It acts as a detention pond because it doesn't have an outlet. The water in that ditch has never run over the road in my time living here. I just took the dog out and looked at it. It's running over the road and down my neighbors driveway and now my driveway. The water travels about 400' down his driveway into a drain he installed across his shop footing. Lucky for him because it would have flooded his shop otherwise. We are both the lowest properties on our road so we get a lot of run off.

I think we may have broken some rainfall records this week. I noticed that the weather site that I use stated that so far it's the warmest winter on record in the US and we're getting some very strange weather.

[OlongJohnson]

I remember 1990, when Fir Island was underwater and volunteer sandbagging crews saved downtown Mt. Vernon. That was a bad year, in a trend of increasingly bad flood years. Makes "When the Levee Breaks" personally meaningful.

[rsa-otc]

All the above doesn't address other issues I don't hear anyone talk about.

The Jet Stream has changed. Did anyone really think it wasn't going to. Up until the last 75 years the wind has blown across the center of the US and other parts of the world without any interference. Now we have cities with sky scrappers resisting the wind and slowing it down causing the jet stream to change and follow the path of least resistance. Add to that all the wind farms taking energy out of the wind. Nothing is for free.

Now let's discuss what all these solar panels may/could/probably be doing to change the environment. They are collecting energy that otherwise would be falling on mother earth, will that prove to be detrimental in the long run??

How about collecting energy from the oceans waves. Again nothing is for free, you are taking energy out of the waves, that's going to probably have secondary and tertiary orders of effect as well.

Does this mean that climate change isn't real, NO. Does this mean that climate change is as bad as some people want us to believe, who knows maybe yes, maybe no.

What I am saying is that many of the solutions people want the world to move to have negative effects associated with them as well. Take electric cars for instance. What about the energy that is used to create the electricity to charge them, the haz waste that the batteries become at the end of their life cycle. Or even the effects of the process to manufacture the lithium batteries. Collectively this may be worse than the footprint caused by good old gas guzzlers.

We need to take a hard look at all things man kind does, as well take in account that climate change is a natural process that can happen quickly. Look at the middle east. That area use to be a garden paradise and now mainly is a desert. And that happened before the industrial revolution.

[Borderland]

I remember 1990, when Fir Island was underwater and volunteer sandbagging crews saved downtown Mt. Vernon. That was a bad year, in a trend of increasingly bad flood years. Makes "When the Levee Breaks" personally meaningful.

I remember seeing farm houses in the middle of large lakes. That one was the mother of all floods on several rivers around here. I was closer to the Snohomish river when that happened. Hwy 2 was under 3' of water near Monroe for days. Living near the river is risky. I've seen too much flood damage to even consider it.

[Caballoflaco]

All the above doesn't address other issues I don't hear anyone talk about.

The Jet Stream has changed. Did anyone really think it wasn't going to. Up until the last 75 years the wind has blown across the center of the US and other parts of the world without any interference. Now we have cities with sky scrappers resisting the wind and slowing it down causing the jet stream to change and follow the path of least resistance. Add to that all the wind farms taking energy out of the wind. Nothing is for free.
.

The jet stream over North America is at an altitude between 33,000 ft and 52,000 ft cities and wind farms aren’t going to change the jet stream by blocking the wind.

Cities and urban areas can act as heat sinks and have an affect on local convective storms.

[UNK]

Oops. Glacier melting from the bottom up.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/the-anatomy-of-glacial-ice-loss#:~:text=%22The%20water%20melts%20the%20ice,ca using%20it%20to%20become%20thinner.

[UNK]

The only prediction I'll make is that the climate change people will be proven wrong again in 10 years.

https://www.newsweek.com/volcanic-activity-melting-antarctic-glacier-below-998522

[willie]

I am no longer current in my study so I had best not show my ignorance. Looking at changes having occurred over geological time measured in 100's of 1000's of years to millions of years, we can say that climate changes were numerous and extreme. Human beings during their brief stay have influenced climate and will continue to do so. The question, though, is to what extent. Unfortunately, highly emotional and even vicious politics determine the nature of dialogue. I can't think of a more polarized subject.

Though my unqualified opinion is that burning fossil fuel accelerates global warming, I have no idea to what extent. Further, I must exclaim that I can not fathom our civilization's surviving without burning fossil fuels including coal. Visualize our nation's level of energy consumption. Now visualize the planet's energy expenditure if the 3rd World consumed energy at levels similar to the United States. If that did occur, would you care to guess the effect on global warming(climate change)? I hope that I have not showed my ignorance. My beloved nephew and I disagree on this subject. He says that he is a science denier. I tell him he's not qualified to deny science, and I'm not qualified to argue with him. His tortoise bit him. I attributed this to climate change.🤗

[Navin Johnson]

"Though my unqualified opinion is that burning fossil fuel accelerates global warming, "

Get with the woke verbage bro, Its climate change because the climate never started changing till recently.

Global warming is so yesterday.....

[willie]

"Though my unqualified opinion is that burning fossil fuel accelerates global warming, "

Get with the woke verbage bro, Its climate change because the climate never started changing till recently.

Global warming is so yesterday.....

I did not understand your comment. Do you think that C02 is a factor in climate change which when referred to by scholars usually means warming of the earth. Ain't trying to argue. What is your point? It went over my head.

[Wondering Beard]

I did not understand your comment. Do you think that C02 is a factor in climate change which when referred to by scholars usually means warming of the earth. Ain't trying to argue. What is your point? It went over my head.

He was just teasing you with your use of the words "global warming".

It has been changed to "climate change" a few years back. As to the why of that, I don't really know except it seems to have little to do with actual science and more to do with politics.

[Navin Johnson]

I did not understand your comment. Do you think that C02 is a factor in climate change which when referred to by scholars usually means warming of the earth. Ain't trying to argue. What is your point? It went over my head.

"Global warming" had too much definition to it so now it is called" climate change"..... An undefinable term...... Accept it is the greatest threat to the United States....... far more so than the Soviet Union or China according to our government......

[willie]

Yes, I'm aware that one term has replaced the other. I view climate change as an euphemism for global warming.

[UNK]

The only prediction I'll make is that the climate change people will be proven wrong again in 10 years.

Apparently some glaciers are melting from below which has nothing to do with global warming.

https://www.vox.com/22939545/antarctica-greenland-ice-sheet-shelf-glacier-melt-climate-sea-level-rise

[Dog Guy]

Apparently some glaciers are melting from below which has nothing to do with global warming.

https://www.vox.com/22939545/antarctica-greenland-ice-sheet-shelf-glacier-melt-climate-sea-level-rise

Can you expound on that a little bit? I read this article and one other on the same subject and I don't see where either one makes that claim.

[UNK]

Can you expound on that a little bit? I read this article and one other on the same subject and I don't see where either one makes that claim.

The article details two different masses Greenland and Antartica and they are melting for different reasons. Greenland is melting from above and Antartica is melting from below. The melting from below is the part that cant be contributed to global warming as its geothermal.
This is part of a six year study so its currently the best assessment who knows how much this will change. If you go back to earlier findings from the same study you will see how the understanding has changed.

Hence the statement “Some of the glaciers”

[Dog Guy]

But the article doesn't reference a geothermal source at all. It refers to the Antarctic ice shelf being melted by warmer water in the ocean from below.

The effect on Greenland is referring to surface meltwater that percolates through the ice and then causes melt from below. "The water doesn’t stay on top. It pours through cracks and fissures in the ice, falling more than a mile in some places to the rocky ground below. In a study this week published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Christoffersen and his colleagues revealed that this is melting Greenland’s ice sheet from below."

I agree that the understanding of these mechanisms is pretty rudimentary at this point. The researchers make that point several times. The concept should get refined as the methodology for observation and measurement advances.

[UNK]

But the article doesn't reference a geothermal source at all. It refers to the Antarctic ice shelf being melted by warmer water in the ocean from below.

The effect on Greenland is referring to surface meltwater that percolates through the ice and then causes melt from below. "The water doesn’t stay on top. It pours through cracks and fissures in the ice, falling more than a mile in some places to the rocky ground below. In a study this week published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Christoffersen and his colleagues revealed that this is melting Greenland’s ice sheet from below."

I agree that the understanding of these mechanisms is pretty rudimentary at this point. The researchers make that point several times. The concept should get refined as the methodology for observation and measurement advances.

Ok let me try this one. Maybe because Ive read so much about it I didnt pick the best article. Actually there is a really good article, very detailed on the field work that I didnt save, that Im trying to find to post here.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201207102105.htm

“A team of researchers understands more about the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. They discovered a flow of hot rocks, known as a mantle plume, rising from the core-mantle boundary beneath central Greenland that melts the ice from below.”

[Dog Guy]

Thanks for the extra link. I'll read through it tomorrow, and hopefully have time to get to the source paper as well.