Are hurricanes more damaging, or is there just more to damage?

[lazygood4nothinbum]

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Originally Posted by Alex All of the climate data put out by the global warming crowd only goes back about half a million years , any further back and you get into an age where there was no ice at either pole.

how far back would you like them to go? sure, there was a time when most of earth was molten, you know, before ice, but that was way before we started building condos in florida and planting wheat fields in, well, where ever they do that.

the problem isn't climate change. it is the rate of change. you know, like when it changes faster than the speed of evolution. we're just saying, this might be a problem.

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Originally Posted by Cute n Fuzzy Bunnay It appears the gulf stream may have changed direction several times throughout history.

i'm actually all for shutting it down and i've been looking for the switch. a 100 years of bad winters for the northerners vs lower hurricane insurance premiums for me. it's not like i'm wishing them bad. they would be more than welcome to buy up some of those condos we've been over-building.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Come on folks, everyone knows the whole world and everything else was created in 7 days, and it happened just a few thousand years ago. Whats all this "millions of years" stuff?

(yes, this is sarcasm)

[eridanus]

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Originally Posted by lazygood4nothinbum how far back would you like them to go?

They do have CO2 measurements going back millions and millions of years.

First, there seems to be some confusion about "scientific consensus." Scentific consensus is more of a civil court rather than a criminal court. It's not beyond a reasonable doubt. However, comparing a PR newswire to almost 1000 peer-reviewed scientific articles is a little, well, audacious.

If you were to examine the Chylek paper, which is sourced first in the letter by 11 (!) climate scientists, you'd notice how the results are short and are cherry picked. He uses ONE station. Further, his next study 18 months later CONTRADICTS the study quoted in the letter. A good scientist (person) doesn't fear changing his mind.

[eridanus]

Now for the link at canadafreepress.com. There are a lot of statements in that article and I don't feel like debunking all of them but I'll do some.

"their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03 mm/year - not much of an effect," KarlÈn concludes.

Sea level has risen about 1-3mm/yr since 1900. The Posiedon satellite indicates a rise of 3mm/yr since 1992. So much for ".03 mm/year."

As far as the Arctic ice mass melting, the US Navy thinks it's plausible:

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/icefree/Arcticscenario.pdf

"Data acquired on U.S. submarine cruises reveal that the sea ice has thinned by 42%. The mean ice draft at the end of the melt season in the Arctic has decreased by about 1.3 meters (4.3 feet) over the past 30 to 40 years."

There are a lot of other links in that Navy scenario.

The criticism about the the ice cap melting and the Gore movie was about one study he [Gore] cited. The scientist KarlÈn then goes on to contradict Gore by quoting another (1) study. He's either mis-quoted, disingenuous, or plain wrong. If you read the study, Polyakov DOES agree that there is Arctic warming and ice cover loss. He just doesn't agree that it's due to global warming. Polyakov is obviously in the non-consensus camp. There are plenty of other scientists who disagree with Polyakov.

[More on Greenland warming and Chylek's second study: http://www.lanl.gov/news/newsletter/092605.pdf.]

[eridanus]

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Originally Posted by Cute n Fuzzy Bunnay Its hard to say whether we're getting into trouble or not, but its probably a good idea to be alarmed and wrong than ignore it, as long as nobody does anything patently stupid. It appears to me that cutting back on pollution just makes good sense for everyone. As long as we arent nutjobs about it and try to force massive very short term changes at a cost of trillions of dollars.

My third post in a row...I felt like breaking them up lest they get too long for reading enjoyment.

Bunny hit the nail on the head. Scientific consensus COULD be wrong...but do we want to take the chance? Wise pollution reduction (and population control) is better than sticking our head in the sand and pretending we don't see the glaciers retreating.

[AltaRed]

Some hundreds of millions of years ago, there was such an abundance of life (plants, etc), that the decomposition and cooking of this matter resulted in huge oil and gas fields in the Arctic (Gas in Northern Canada and Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope are good examples). Sipping on a Pina Colada on the shores of the Arctic Ocean in December might be a cool thing to do.

The point is that we are still coming out of the last great Ice Age, with a mini-period of warming arount 1000 AD that allowed farming to occur in Labrador, Canada, and a mini-period of cooling in medieval times that froze the buns off all those castle barons in Europe. We do not know how much humankind is contributing to the pace of global warming, but it is anywere from very close to zero to close to zero. *Should we be smart and reduce our load on the environment? Of course. Should we be blindly stupid about it? Of course not.

[Nords]

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Originally Posted by eridanus My third post in a row...I felt like breaking them up lest they get too long for reading enjoyment.*

Nice try, but we know you're just trying to boost your point count...

[eridanus]

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Originally Posted by Nords Nice try, but we know you're just trying to boost your point count...

Must. Get. More. Posts.

[HFWR]

Must

[HFWR]

get

[HFWR]

more

[HFWR]

posts... :P

[laurence]

The language used to deny Global Warming is eerily reminicent of the language used by Tobacco companies to deny health problems with their products.

CFB and I have said the same thing before, hey, we aren't sure exactly what's going on, but don't you think stepping back from the coal fired incinerator for a minute to find out what that black stuff you are coughing up is might be a good idea? Forget global warming, how about the rise in asma in children, etc?

Oh, someone here said something about who cares if America, the Asain Tigers and Europe reduce emissions, they aren't the majority of the population.

The average American consumes something along the lines of 250 times the energy the average African consumes. Of the ~80 million barrels of oil used a day, North America, Japan and China, and the EU use almost all of that.

United States: 20 million barrels a day

Nigeria (largest African country) : 310 thousand a day

Even Inda only uses about a million, and they have three times the population of the U.S. - that means 1/60th the per capita use!

So, o.k., developing countries are growing, and may start taking on first world habits. Isn't that all the more reason for use to research and develop a better way? Before the $%#& really hits the fan?

But those who will hear me already agree, those that don't will just glaze over this.

[justin]

What's the point in worrying about oil consumption? We're about to hit peak oil any day now, right? Oil will soon be, what, $100, $200/bbl? Nobody will use the stuff anymore.

Oh, by the way, the black stuff the coal plant worker is coughing up probably ain't greenhouse gasses. Maybe particulate matter.

[laurence]

It was a metaphor, but thanks for the clarification! :

[justin]

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Originally Posted by Laurence It was a metaphor, but thanks for the clarification! :

I just wanted to be clear we're discussing carbon dioxide (greenhouse gasses) and their relationship to climate change. I've just never heard of CO2 making anyone cough or increasing asthma occurrence rates. Maybe ground level ozone, NoX, particulate matter, VOC's, or a slew of other irritants. CO also has bad effects, but I don't think it causes asthma.

It is interesting to note that a major (maybe even predominant some say) source of VOC and PM air pollution are naturally occuring. Pine trees in many areas produce much more VOCs than man does. Similarly, naturally occuring suspended particulate matter occurs when dust/dirt is entrained in the air by wind. A lot of the earth is covered in dust/dirt.

[laurence]

I thought we were discussing hurricanes and I took part in a hijack of a thread!

But it will take some more fiddling (while Rome's oil burns) before we'll do anything. And if we do act in time, I'll shake my head as everyone claims they were pro environment the whole time. Just like they were all for the civil rights movement, women's right to vote, etc. etc. In fact, isn't it funny you can't find anybody who admits to being a pro-segragationist back in the day? Not unless they were on the record like Strom Thurmun or Jesse Helms...

[justin]

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Originally Posted by Laurence In fact, isn't it funny you can't find anybody who admits to being a pro-segragationist back in the day? Not unless they were on the record like Strom Thurmun or Jesse Helms...

[threadjack] You haven't met my two grandfathers... one is deceased, but the other will gladly tell you what you want to hear re: how much of a segregationist he is/was.

There is a small minority of minorities (no pun intended) today who favor segregation in a number of institutions, education being one of them. They will readily admit it because they think it works better.

[Nords]

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Originally Posted by justin There is a small minority of minorities (no pun intended) today who favor segregation in a number of institutions, education being one of them.* They will readily admit it because they think it works better.*

You mean like single-gender schools?

[justin]

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Originally Posted by Nords You mean like single-gender schools?

I originally meant single race/ethnicity schools, but yes, single gender schools, too.