Global Warming Poll

[TromboneAl]

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[FinallyRetired]

I voted real, not caused by humans, and we should do something about it. But I believe in doing something to guard ourselves against its consequences, not doing something about the climate or our emissions for the sake of GW. For example, we can revise building codes along hurricane coasts, limit construction along coastal plains, discourage overpopulation of areas likely to become drier, etc. And we should limit atmospheric pollution for health reasons even if they are not primary drivers for GW. (CO2 is not a pollutant)

 

[wildcat]

I don't mind sharing my choice - real, caused by humans and we should try to do something about it.

I am not sure we will be able to reverse much of anything but I try to do what I can.

 

[FreeBird]

Instead of saying "humans" I'd rather state that global warming and/or cooling has always been a factor in the natural history of the planet. Do humans factor into the equation, then I'd have to say yes... however no where close to the level of "Al Gore hysteria".

A perfect example of this hysteria at work is one fellow who is a very obvious "save the planet" type person (which I have no problem with since I also like drinking clean water and breathing clean air) but about a month ago he gave me a hard time and short lecture about me using styrofoam cups.

I quickly engaged and reminded him that I live only 3 miles from work and he drives 30 miles (one way) each day. I also reminded him of recently flying his entire family to Oklahoma one weekend for a wedding and did he realize how many pounds of jet fuel per hour and per person that it takes to keep that big bird in the sky? After this comparison of carbon footprints he hasn't discussed "solutions" with me since and I continue to enjoy my guilt-free one styrofoam cup of coffee every morning. By the way, he just flew his family to Israel for two weeks.

Don't get me wrong... I want to do my part and to be a good steward of the land but a growing number of well intentioned folks just like to "talk the talk" for no other reason than how it makes them feel good.

 

[loosechickens]

We have the same situation FreeBird, living in a big diesel motorhome, and get the same sort of comments. However, when we explain our total carbon footprint, no commuting to jobs, low average miles on the motorhome and good diesel mileage for its' size, not to mention almost never having to cool or heat our living space, which only numbers several hundred square feet for the rare times we need heat or a/c, using our ignition key to position ourselves in good weather seasonally instead......creating our own electricity on the roof with solar photovoltaic panels, a water usage of about 50 gallons per week, most of what we own, which is limited in amount, comes from thrift stores or we make it ourselves, use almost no disposable products such as paper plates, cups or paper towels, eat low on the food chain which means mostly vegetarian, no processed foods, no lawn mowing or leaf blowing, sooking in a solar oven, etc........after all that, they usually shut up.

Because our carbon footprint is a tiny fraction of that of most folks in this country, and we know it. And after we talk to them about our lifestyle, they know it as well.

LooseChickens

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

i believe we caused it and i think we should try to do something about it even though i don't believe we will succeed in stopping global warming. i do believe we will survive it. but for all i believe in this matter, the only thing i know is that the most important thing at this point is that we change our thinking, for only that will change our world.

 

[HFWR]

Real, but only exacerbated by humans...

 

[maddythebeagle]

Real, but only exacerbated by humans...

I agree with that...I vote real and we should do something about....I think we probably are causing a small change, but compared to the cycles in history, probably not worthy of the hysteria that some are trying to create.....I vote for a change because moving away from fossil fuel energy is a good idea for other reasons (geopolitical and less local air pollution)....

 

[Rick S]

Good poll choices!

I never thought I would say this, but the input from my question brings me to the conclusion that GW is:

Real, it is caused by humans, and we should not try to do anything about it

I still want to try to live lightly on the planet... smaller house, car, etc.... and personally "pack out what I take in" in general...
... but there is too much that public funds can do that can really be helpful to spend money that won't make a difference

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Wake me up when you can grow wheat again in Thule.

 

[lets-retire]

I voted Real, it is not caused by humans, and we should not try to do anything about it.

My thought process and the evidence I've read leads me to believe GW is similar to a colander, that humans put an extra hole into, even if we plug up that extra hole the thing still won't hold water.

 

[TromboneAl]

If it's not caused by human activity, what is the explanation for this graph:

1. The graph is wrong
2. Carbon Dioxide does not cause global warming
3. The increase at the end is a natural cycle?

 

[USK Coastie]

Al, how about showing the rest of the graph going back 50,000 to 100,000 years? I beilve global climate change is real just not convinced that humans are the cause.

After all you could put all of humanity in the state of Texas with 300 sq ft per person and still have room left over. The amount of energy striking the earth from the sun every day is thousands of times more than humanity has used since 4000 BC. I think its a lot of Hurbis to think we have any long lasting effect on earth. By long lasting I mean a million years or so.

We are just here for the journey. Enjoy the ride.

 

[kcowan]

Good poll choices!
I never thought I would say this, but the input from my question brings me to the conclusion that GW is:

Real, it is caused by humans, and we should not try to do anything about it

Another possible conclusion is that the IPCC/Al Gore propaganda machine is working....ER folks are representative of the population after all!

My choice was not presented:

Real, has a minor contribution from civilization, and is unlikely to respond in any meaningful way to CO2 limitation schemes.

 

[Celany]

how about a "not sure if it's real or not, but we should do something about it/how we live anyway" option?

I'm honestly not sure if it's real or not. My opinion on it changes practically daily. I've heard really good reasons & scientific facts on each side & well, I just don't know. We've seen proof of the climate being much hotter and much colder in the past. IMO, it's a bit arrogant of us to assume that we've 'got it all figured out' either way. But then, that's the human race, arrogant about its ability to handle everything it sticks its nose into...

Regardless of global warming, we are most certainly leaving an impact, between the deforesting, the massive destruction of delicate ecosystems, the extermination of whole species through carelessness, the polluting through burning, dumping toxic wastes, oil spills etc. & I think that laws perserving our environment should become a lot stronger & involve much heavier fines (and jail time) than they currently do.

We've only got this one planet. & unfortunately, we don't yet have a peter f hamilton kind of society, with lots of planets colonized. & it doesn't look like that's coming any time soon.

 

[ERD50]

My choice was not presented:

Real, has a minor contribution from civilization, and is unlikely to respond in any meaningful way to CO2 limitation schemes.

Yep, that's where my vote would go too.

The odd thing is, the people that Al Gore quotes (the IPCC) are saying the same thing. That message is not getting out much, reflected by the fact that it was not even a choice in the poll!

OTOH, there may be some other strategies that will work (if needed). Send out satellites to block 1 or 2 % of the sun, iron fertilization of the oceans, probably others that I don't know about, or have not been invented yet.

-ERD50

 

[FinallyRetired]

If it's not caused by human activity, what is the explanation for this graph:

Al, with all respect, that graph only says CO2 has been increasing and is likely caused by human activity. But it says nothing about that CO2 causing a temperature rise. Here is a more informative graph. What caused the CO2 rise back then, and why does CO2 lag temperature? The earth is a very complex nonlinear dynamic system, no easy answers.

 

[TromboneAl]

That's an interesting graph, Soon, I'll look into that.

If I'd added "but I'm not sure" or "minor contribution" variations to the options, there would have been a lot of poll choices.

 

[haha]

I don't feel that I have the information or skills to know much about it. Count me agnostic.

Ha

 

[FinallyRetired]

That's an interesting graph, Soon, I'll look into that.

There's plenty more like that, and a lot of theories as to why the earth exhibits such cyclical variation in both temperature and CO2. But there is no one theory that explains it or that is accepted by all scientists. One thing appears clear, even if a combination of deterministic geophysical theories answers a portion of the observed data, there will remain a large part that will remain unknown because it gets into the chaotic behavior of such systems.

The theory that human activity and CO2 is the cause for the observed global warming, or any other theory, has to also explain the long term record during times when there were no humans around.

 

[ERD50]

If I'd added "but I'm not sure" or "minor contribution" variations to the options, there would have been a lot of poll choices.

No offense Al, but what good is a poll that leaves out the choice that appears to reflect the 'correct' answer ('correct' meaning it is what the IPCC is stating)?

I mean, I assume that the people who accept that Global Warming is real are partially influenced by the work and publications of the IPCC. So, if one puts stock their reports, then why not also put stock in what they are saying about it? And the IPCC is saying what kcowan said: 'Real, has a minor contribution from civilization, and is unlikely to respond in any meaningful way to CO2 limitation schemes.'.

As far as I can determine, the IPCC is not saying (at least the majority of the members) any of the other choices. So, the poll might be interesting to see what people *think*, but I really believe that the IPCC view needs to be one of the choices. Without it, there just is no perspective. It's like asking what kind of wine would you like with your meal, Mac or PC? I want CABERNET!

-ERD50

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

And the IPCC is saying what kcowan said: 'Real, has a minor contribution from civilization, and is unlikely to respond in any meaningful way to CO2 limitation schemes.'.

Odd, because the IPCC says:

• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
• Most of (>50% of) the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (confidence level >90%) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations.
• Hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized, although the likely amount of temperature and sea level rise varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century.
• The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%.

So it seems the IPCC is saying that global warming is real, that it's is primarily caused by people, that taking action would be beneficial, and that its not a natural phenomenon.

In each of these areas, the IPCC states that agreement is high and evidence is substantial to support these claims.

 

[greg]

Re: Global Warming (my rant)

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind...
--John Donne

It seems to me that there is much more going on with global warming than just an argument about who, what, or how it is caused. This global warming part seems to me to be a surface argument. Underneath is a far more important problem, with lots of direct evidence of its existence.

Global warming may or may not be caused by too much CO2 in the atmosphere. The final verdict may not be in, the final evidence of a world gone toxic isn’t here yet. But one thing we all know is that the world population is still growing and that more and more pollution (especially the industrial sort) is entering the atmosphere every day. Combine a rising population with increasing toxic waste and I personally don’t see how the air can get better, how our blue marble can maintain its colors and its vibrancy over time. By example, all of us have read about the toxic waste flowing down China’s rivers, getting more toxic as it passes by each city; we also all know that a number of Chinese towns in northern China have a majority of people and children laid to waste by toxic lead and heavy metal poisoning from factory discharges and burning of low grade coal. We also know that these toxic streams of wastes enter our shared oceans and our shared atmosphere and sooner or later are visited upon us, even if only by the shrimp from Thailand raised in off-shore shrimp beds imbued with local waters. They maybe are raised in a neighborhood of toxins and then put into our bodies. And maybe they don’t exceed some excessive toxic limit by themselves . . . .

In our own personal lives we take great interest in the neighborhood we live in. And in fact, most of us buy our homes in places that conform to our own standards of comfort and hygiene. Most of us would be offended if the next door neighbor decided he didn’t want to be hooked up to the sewage system, wanted to just dig an outhouse hole in the backyard and drain his grey water out near the back of his yard . . . . We, in fact, have numerous laws against such behaviors. We want standards, and we want the neighbors to conform to these community standards too. Like the slowly boiling frog, many don’t want to get used to certain types of smells coming from other people’s yard. We have standards. And we don’t want to wake up one morning gagging from various smells and toxins that have slowly entered the environment and now begin to affect our health and our children’s health. Thankfully, we mostly have good local laws governing such obviously crude and vulgar behaviors.

The G8 climate change agreements are nothing more--or less--than an attempt to have local environmental rules writ large, an agreement of major players on our big blue marble to all treat the environment the same or close to it—to have common rules in our community.

A thousand years ago, even a hundred years ago, such toxic issues didn’t matter quite so much. If some environment got poisoned, one could just avoid it until nature cleaned it up the cheap and easy way. Now we have billions of folks all creating a larger portion of toxins in their everyday lives. And we have run out of frontiers and clean environments to run towards. In fact, the purest environments of twenty-five years ago, such as the rain forests of Brazil, are rapidly disappearing; those were the back up safe places, the places where lots of good purification occurred. We have fewer choices now; we are all now living on a mildly cramped Blue Marble. And we all spew too many toxins.

Global warming is just one facet of a much larger issue of environmental toxins as I see things. Focusing just on global warming as separate from other toxin issues slightly warps reality as far as I’m concerned, and it reduces the nature of the chemistry of mixed environmental poisons . Toxins in the air can and do hurt us; toxins in food can and do hurt us, etc, etc; and when you start mixing all these toxins together in the soup called ‘”us” you may end up with a set of unidentifiable causes and effects, maybe some cancer here or some drought there or some extra irritability from just smelling some minor stink all day, thoughts and emotions gone awry from some plastic-like off-gassing. And one may give up or ignore the entire mess and just enjoy the frog-like warmness of it all. Better if things don’t go that far—to my mind.

 

[Rick S]

Greg... that is SO well said.

Who could argue with that?

 

[ERD50]

Odd, because the IPCC says:

* Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

<the rest are repeated below>

So it seems the IPCC is saying that global warming is real, that it's is primarily caused by people, that taking action would be beneficial, and that its not a natural phenomenon.

In each of these areas, the IPCC states that agreement is high and evidence is substantial to support these claims.

It's not odd, actually. I don't see much (if any) conflict between those IPCC statements and 'Real, has a minor contribution from civilization, and is unlikely to respond in any meaningful way to CO2 limitation schemes.' (after all, that proposed poll statement is based on statements *from* the IPCC). Obviously, it's a bit tough to get all that info and nuance into a one liner for a poll, so sure, there's some gaps in interpretation that can be expanded on.

So let's take 'em one at a time:

*Warming of the climate system is unequivocal. - Full agreement there, GW is real.

*Most of (>50% of) the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (confidence level >90%) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations.

OK, the apparent difference here is the time frame. Global warming since the mid 20th century is about 6/10s of a degree C. Global warming since the last Ice Age is more like 8 degrees C. So what about the 7.4 C rise? I think it is fair to say that 0.6 is 'minor' relative to 8, it is less than 10%. So even if man is responsible for *all* the temperature change since 1950, it is still *minor* compared to what Mother Nature herself has contributed.

*Hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized, although the likely amount of temperature and sea level rise varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century.

Again, no conflict. This is exactly what I've been saying. From the info I've taken from the IPCC reports, yes we will see continued change. Now, what do they mean by 'varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century.' ? Well, the IPCC numbers I've referenced before:

# Scenario A1T - * A1T - Emphasis on non-fossil energy sources.
* Sea level rise likely range [20 to 45 cm] (8 to 18 inches)


# Scenario A1FI - * A1FI - An emphasis on fossil-fuels.
* Sea level rise likely range [26 to 59 cm] (10 to 23 inches)

So, by 'varies greatly', they mean to say (using numbers from the middle of their range) that we will get a 16.5" flood under the fossil fuel economy, and a 13" flood with a non-fossil fuel economy. Note that their estimates are so wide, that there is a more than 50% overlap in the two scenarios. Which is to say, this ain't no exact science. So either way, we need to take some probably extreme measures to adapt to the flooding. How much more to adapt to 13" vs 16.5"? I don't know, but it is going to take a significant amout of adaptation to either scenario. At least it is not the 20 FEET that Al Gore likes to dramatize in his slideshow.

* The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%.

Again, no conflict. I never said man had no role in it (just a minor one, overall). In fact, turn that around and they themselves are saying that there *is* as much as a 5% chance that the climate change *is* due solely to natural processes. I tend to think man has had an impact, I tend to doubt that it is *the* major contribution though (again, think about the ice age - those natural processes are very powerful).

-ERD50