That’s a thought, and it’s an opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that the scientific understanding of the relationship between industrial activity and its impact on the climate is well-understood. It’s known that humans are causing the earth’s mean temperature to rise and that this has other impacts. Moreover, increased amounts of greenhouse gases are being absorbed by the oceans, which is causing oceans to acidify. This isn’t debated; it’s known.
p.s. I have a degree in psychology and human sciences from Northwestern Lieutenant Governor’s University.
Another alternative is that EastUmpqua took a lower level course in Earth Sciences while taking a humanities program. Or never graduated.
You’ll note the language: “I studied” rather than “I graduated in” or “hold a degree in”
So you think rboyce has a good understanding of atmospheric science based on his posts here. OK then.
So you think the following statements show a “good understanding of atmospheric science”
Our planet was not created by the development of our solar system. Earth came from elsewhere.
This is accurate is it?
The planets tilt is causing the climate changes, not burning oil.
So the rapid increase in global temperatures we have recorded in the past 100 years is caused by the planets tilt. You think that is "a good understanding of atmospheric science
rboyce has just regurgitated common denial points that have nothing to do with atmosperic science, and instead rely on an innacurate (nuttty) theory of Earth’s fomation combined with the typical "climate has changed in the past (over hundreds of thousands or millions of years), so therefore the rapid change we are seeing now (on the order of a hundred years) is perfectly normal.
It’s crap. It’s not science. And anyone who knows how climate works knows this.
I initially misread that as “Assuming that studying atmospheric science means watching his Mom fill up with weed smoke”, which I found rather an amusing image.
In any case, I have to wonder why our esteemed expert in atmospheric science would spend time studying something that he so vehemently disparages as bad science because it’s all allegedly driven by “a political agenda”. I suspect that, if he went to college at all, what he means is that he opted to take something like Meteorology 101 as an easy elective in his Comparative Religion major. The reasoning being that if he failed to achieve his career objective of becoming a Tibetan monk, he might be able to eke out a living as a local TV weatherman.
Wow… OK I have a BS in Atmospheric Science from OSU, 1987. One of the courses I took talked about the effect Earth’s axis tilt has on climate. The OP was out there a bit, but I think he made a good point. When I signed up for Straight Dope, I hoped it would be a venue for people to disagree and discuss topics, and find out why someone might disagree with your opinions. Instead I see comments like "studying atmospheric science means watching his Mom fill up with weed smoke”. I am disappointed.
Agreed with Atamasama: perhaps the Pit is just not a good place for infrequent posters; maybe you could post a ‘Great Debates’ topic and continue posting and laying out a ‘debate’ there. I think your opinions may still get smacked around but there might be more civility at least
I agree with you. Lower pH in the oceans affects mollusk shell growth, among many other things. Human technology is evolving rapidly, and it’s having a huge impact on our planet. But it bothers me that some people think buying carbon credits (so someone plants a tree for them) mitigates their responsibility to reduce their impact on the planet, so they get to fly to Hawaii guilt free.
First and foremost, no, the OP did NOT make a good point – about anything. He’s a complete imbecile and pretty much a self-identified troll. Your problem here is that for some inexplicable reason you’re trying to defend the indefensible, which is why we’re having some fun at your expense.
As for your comment here about the Earth’s axial tilt, of course the axial tilt has an effect on climate. This is true on several different levels. As even a child knows, the axial tilt is responsible for the seasons, which in turn has a profound and non-obvious effect on the diversity of life on this planet. On a different level, variations in axial tilt, in combination with other factors like axial precession and orbital variations, lead to complex cyclic interactions called Milankovitch cycles that are hypothesized to be the principal initiating factor for geologically modern ice ages, the roughly 100 Ky ice age cycles within the Quaternary glaciation.
However … this has absolutely nothing to do with post-industrial global warming. On the contrary, we should probably be in a slow and gradual cooling phase by now. In any case, the rate of change of recent warming is several orders of magnitude faster than the rate of change associated with the cycles of either glaciation or their termination. In that respect alone, the OP is a moron, and this is just one of a dozen or so basic falsehoods in that one post alone.
As for “… watching his Mom fill up with weed smoke”, yes, just a lighthearted joke, no offense to your Mom, and I really did misread it at first glance because “ro” and the lowercase “m” really do look similar in this board’s typeface. But I have no apologies for being rather insulting about your defense of the OP’s idiocy.
P.S.- you seem like a nice person who probably didn’t deserve quite the amount of grief you got, and I normally don’t like pile-ons like this. But my God, the OP really is a complete idiot.
It’s cool that you did another google search, and found another article on Milankovitch cycles. Can you explain why the Earth’s axis changes its tilt? Especially with respect to the progression of the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit? Please don’t just post more google search results. Thanks
Is it the hypocrisy that bothers you? I mean no snark, just curious.
You may have a point in that buying a carbon credit is a nothing burger in the very immediate short term. But if you ‘penalize’ companies for producing, the money paid might be used to invest in cleaner tech. Moreover, carbon ‘taxes’ provide an incentive to reform long term. The goal is to push and drive innovation that happens sooner rather than later, and a carbon economy could (probably) help us move faster.
I’m a realist: we’re already too late to reverse the temp changes and damage that we’ve already done. It’s quite likely that we will need some kind of carbon capture or processing technology to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere and maybe cooling droplets to reduce the mean temps (we also need international protocols that regulate it so that we don’t create new problems).
