# Do global warming "skeptics" honestly see us as a benign species? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 5, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984 "2014-01-05T23:18:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/121 "2014-01-09T14:07:06Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > But you said it had plateaued. So is it increasing or has it plateaued? **If you want to participate in Great Debates** you should probably decide where you actually stand first. > [@DMC](#): > > I’m just trying to help you out, since you can’t seem to make up your mind what you actually believe. > > Quote: > Originally Posted by doorhinge > I notice that both of your linked articles contain charts that show the global average temp has plateaued for **over a decade**. That’s not “increasing”. > > Quote: > Originally Posted by doorhinge > The “globe” has been warming **since the last ice age**. > > While I realize that it gets confusing when one regurgitates the various arguments trotted out by the deniers, those sure seem to be at odds to me. Or we could go with the fact that your first quote focuses on 10 years of data from charts of 60-130 years and just note that you’re cherry-picking, instead of disagreeing with yourself. Either “flip-flopping” or “cherrypicking” work for me, so I’ll let you decide. (bolding and underline added) Thanks for the help. I believe I see where you became confused. In your first quoted statement I was referring to the current, slightly more than ten year, period. In your second quoted statement, I was referring to a much larger span of time. It isn’t often that people would confuse the two but I suppose it happens occasionally. Just to confirm, the last ice age was longer than a decade ago. I hope that helps. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/122 "2014-01-09T14:11:51Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > …Do you understand that the previous holocene had a smaller anomaly variance in its thousands of years of growth than we’ve had in the past hundred? Hell, the last 30 years have the same anomaly variance as the estimations of the 2000+ years of growth during that period. **This ain’t a cycle here.** Which you (or the IPCC) can prove, of course. Maybe when the next IPCC report has finally been properly vetted by independent sources? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/123 "2014-01-09T15:46:42Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Correct, but it is **constant enough** for our purposes, within the sorts of timeframes we are talking about, and indeed constant enough for us to give it the provocative name “solar constant”! It’s only “constant enough” for your purposes, within the “time frames” you are talking about. If you have a purpose, then you’ve already decided your desired outcome. Hopefully, you see where I might say you’ve prejudged the matter. Of course I understand that you’re making assumptions here, and there’s a wide variety of factors involved that are clearly minimal. Nitrogen is by no means inert to infrared radiation, however it’s effect is so low that we can “safely ignore” it’s contribution. That does NOT mean such an assumption cannot be challenged, and in true scientific form, we should be inviting these challenges. If I may quote Chade Fallstar “When we start making assumptions, we blind ourselves to other possibilities”. Now I’m challenging your assumption that a 20 year time frame is enough to project climate change. I’ll accept that the math and physics works out over this very short time frame, but does it work at 5,000 years? 300,000 years? 28 million years? The ice core data clearly shows that at some point in the cycle, carbon dioxide levels actually decrease over time. I’ll accept that man’s CO2 emissions are increasing temperatures right now, but it’s hard for me to accept, by faith, that this is permanent and irrevocable situation. If we want reduced carbon dioxide levels, wouldn’t it be imperative that we know how this is done naturally? Would you please define “dominant variable” mathematically. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/124 "2014-01-09T16:10:20Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > I’m willing to wait for the new IPCC report to be officially released AND PROPERLY VETTED by independent organizations. By “properly vetted”, I mean being able to see the actual human inputs used for the IPCC’s computer modeling as opposed to the IPCC’s history of not releasing their inputs and eventually “losing” them when it appeared that the data would have to be made public. Cite? As shown before this item is not based on anything resembling a valid or factual source. In reality is still based on a myth from the contrarian sources. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/125 "2014-01-09T16:16:42Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > (bolding and underline added) > > Thanks for the help. > > I believe I see where you became confused. In your first quoted statement I was referring to the current, slightly more than ten year, period. In your second quoted statement, I was referring to a much larger span of time. It isn’t often that people would confuse the two but I suppose it happens occasionally. Just to confirm, the last ice age was longer than a decade ago. I hope that helps. Of course it helps a lot, it helps to establish who is using statistics to get it wrong, and that would be the contrarians. [http://mediamatters.org/blog/2009/10/26/ap-statisticians-reject-drudge-pushed-global-co/156143](http://mediamatters.org/blog/2009/10/26/ap-statisticians-reject-drudge-pushed-global-co/156143) > [@](#): > > In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time. > > “If you look at the data and sort of cherry-pick a micro-trend within a bigger trend, that technique is particularly suspect,” said John Grego, a professor of statistics at the University of South Carolina. > [@](#): > > The AP sent expert statisticians NOAA’s year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years and the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures preferred by skeptics and gathered by scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. > > Statisticians who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set. The ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880. > > Saying there’s a downward trend since 1998 is not scientifically legitimate, said David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor and one of those analyzing the numbers. > > Identifying a downward trend is a case of “people coming at the data with preconceived notions,” said Peterson, author of the book “Why Did They Do That? An Introduction to Forensic Decision Analysis.” ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/126 "2014-01-09T16:18:17Z")
> [@eg8576736](#): > > To put it another way, is the species that “can’t be causing global warming” When you say “global warming” are you referring to any measurable increase in global surface temperatures regardless of the cause? Or do you mean something else? If so, what? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/127 "2014-01-09T16:50:15Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > It’s only “constant enough” for your purposes, within the “time frames” you are talking about. If you have a purpose, then you’ve already decided your desired outcome. Hopefully, you see where I might say you’ve prejudged the matter. Of course I understand that you’re making assumptions here, and there’s a wide variety of factors involved that are clearly minimal. Nitrogen is by no means inert to infrared radiation, however it’s effect is so low that we can “safely ignore” it’s contribution. That does NOT mean such an assumption cannot be challenged, and in true scientific form, we should be inviting these challenges. > > If I may quote Chade Fallstar “When we start making assumptions, we blind ourselves to other possibilities”. As it was shown already, the effects of the cycles have already been looked at and found to be not important and too slow to affect the upward trend observed. It is also very important to not forget that the assumption was that the cycles were important for long term phenomenons. For the current increase in temperature that was found to not fit the observations. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > Now I’m challenging your assumption that a 20 year time frame is enough to project climate change. I’ll accept that the math and physics works out over this very short time frame, but does it work at 5,000 years? 300,000 years? 28 million years? The ice core data clearly shows that at some point in the cycle, carbon dioxide levels actually decrease over time. I’ll accept that man’s CO2 emissions are increasing temperatures right now, but it’s hard for me to accept, by faith, that this is permanent and irrevocable situation. > > If we want reduced carbon dioxide levels, wouldn’t it be imperative that we know how this is done naturally? > > Would you please define “dominant variable” mathematically. Not sure if it was affirmed that this is permanent, or irrevocable, but by practical human life time terms one can say that. Speaking of imperatives I do point out that it is imperative to check what researchers did to tell us that we are very aware of what nature is doing. > **[How do human CO2 emissions compare to natural CO2 emissions?](https://skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-intermediate.htm)** > > \The CO2 that nature emits (from the ocean and vegetation) is balanced by natural absorptions (again by the ocean and vegetation). Therefore human emissions upset the natural balance, rising CO2 to levels not seen in at least 800,000 years. In... > [@](#): > > The CO2 that nature emits (from the ocean and vegetation) is balanced by natural absorptions (again by the ocean and vegetation). Therefore human emissions upset the natural balance, rising CO2 to levels not seen in at least 800,000 years. In fact, human emit 26 gigatonnes of CO2 per year while CO2 in the atmosphere is rising by only 15 gigatonnes per year - much of human CO2 emissions is being absorbed by natural sinks. > > About 40% of human CO2 emissions are being absorbed, mostly by vegetation and the oceans. The rest remains in the atmosphere. As a consequence, atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in 15 to 20 million years ([Tripati 2009](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394.abstract)). A natural change of 100ppm normally takes 5,000 to 20.000 years. The recent increase of 100ppm has taken just 120 years. > > Additional confirmation that rising CO2 levels are due to human activity comes from examining the ratio of carbon isotopes (eg ? carbon atoms with differing numbers of neutrons) found in the atmosphere. Carbon 12 has 6 neutrons, carbon 13 has 7 neutrons. Plants have a lower C13/C12 ratio than in the atmosphere. If rising atmospheric CO2 comes from fossil fuels, the C13/C12 should be falling. Indeed this is what is occurring ([Ghosh 2003](http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf)). The C13/C12 ratio correlates with the trend in global emissions. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/128 "2014-01-09T17:02:30Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > When you say “global warming” are you referring to any measurable increase in global surface temperatures regardless of the cause? > > Or do you mean something else? If so, what? One can check the dictionary if one does not like other sources: > **[Oxford Languages | The Home of Language Data](https://languages.oup.com/)** > > Explore Oxford Languages, the home of world-renowned language data. > [@](#): > > Global warming > Syllabification: (glob·al warm·ing) > > ``` > a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/129 "2014-01-09T17:33:35Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > It’s only “constant enough” for your purposes, within the “time frames” you are talking about. If you have a purpose, then you’ve already decided your desired outcome. Only if the purpose is to promote an agenda. The “purpose” to which I refer is the ability to objectively assess the impact of different climate forcings over centenary and millennial timescales. The impact of the variability of the solar constant in this context is negligible relative to the impact of other forcings. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > Now I’m challenging your assumption that a 20 year time frame is enough to project climate change. I agree, but I don’t recall ever saying that it was. Climate projections are based on a vast body of paleoclimate evidence about how the climate behaves, how it’s influenced by GHGs, and how it has been behaving since the onset of industrialization. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > The ice core data clearly shows that at some point in the cycle, carbon dioxide levels actually decrease over time. I’ll accept that man’s CO2 emissions are increasing temperatures right now, but it’s hard for me to accept, by faith, that this is permanent and irrevocable situation. Yes, we’ve discussed the carbon cycle and why it happens. We have also discussed the fact that we’ve blasted ourselves into a completely new era by suddenly elevating CO2 to the unprecedented (since humanity has existed) level of 400 ppm, soon to be 500 ppm, then 600. This carbon is coming from extremely ancient sources that have been sequestered since dinosaurs walked the earth and are now being put back into the atmosphere at an extraordinary pace. Thanks to Exxon Mobil and friends, the natural carbon cycle that has prevailed since the mid-Pleistocene is now history. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > If we want reduced carbon dioxide levels, wouldn’t it be imperative that we know how this is done naturally? There is no real mystery about how the carbon cycle works. Which incidentally includes the knowledge that important carbon sinks – namely the oceans – are beginning to saturate. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > Would you please define “dominant variable” mathematically. I presume you mean you want me to quantify it. This has been done within reasonable margins of error – see, for example, _Figure TS.6: Radiative Forcing (RF) and Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF) of climate change during the industrial era_ in the IPCC AR5 WG1 Technical Summary. Briefly, CO2 radiative forcing is around 1.8 W/M **2. When all positive and negative anthropogenic forcings are summed we get a net of about 2.4 W/M** 2 – most of that due to CO2 plus all other GHGs on the positive side and atmospheric aerosols on the negative. Natural forcings consist of an increase in solar irradiance of less than 0.2 W/M\*\*2 (just my guesstimate from eyeballing the graph). There are your relative numbers. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/130 "2014-01-09T18:02:49Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > I’m willing to wait for the new IPCC report to be officially released AND PROPERLY VETTED by independent organizations. By “properly vetted”, I mean being able to see the actual human inputs used for the IPCC’s computer modeling as opposed to the IPCC’s history of not releasing their inputs and eventually “losing” them when it appeared that the data would have to be made public. I’m curious about what omniscient organizations you expect will be “vetting” the IPCC report. I particularly ask this because the IPCC report has already been subjected to multiple levels of peer review, and moreover is itself based on a vast body of peer-reviewed and cited literature. One can’t help but get the impression that what you’re really waiting for is for the oil industry lobbyists to get the usual denialist talking points together. That last sentence about computer modeling doesn’t make any sense. The IPCC itself doesn’t do modeling, just as they don’t do original science but rather provide assessments of the existing science. In respect to modeling they do work closely with academic initiatives like CMIP5, which is a wide-ranging open global collaboration of climate modeling experiments. The outputs from the models are all publicly available AFAIK, and the inputs are based on standardized RCPs (Representative Concentration Pathways, which recently replaced the old SRES emissions scenarios). Where is this nefarious “hiding” of information? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/131 "2014-01-09T20:02:56Z")
My agenda is to debate the qualifiers “good” and “bad” in the context of climate change. And to clarify, I concede man-made climate change. Unfortunately, this still makes me a “Climate Change Denier”, simply because I’ll take Lower Cretaceous climate any day of the week than the crap I saw on my crocus this morning. Which post numbers did we discuss carbon cycle? Given x + y + z = 0, which is the “dominant variable”. [This publication](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geo.utexas.edu%2Fcourses%2F387h%2FPAPERS%2Fkiehl.pdf&ei=WvnOUsKeHtbooASL6YGoCA&usg=AFQjCNFZNLuIUJTXjUfvAgxExg-wDOvSbA&sig2=KaZIC02Vjn34h1I5KHQQPQ&bvm=bv.59026428,d.cGU) gives _signifantly_ different values for CO2 flux, and clearly states (in Table 3) that water vapor is the primary contributor. That’s why a statement like “most of that [flux is] due to CO2 plus all other GHGs” is throwing flags. That’s like saying look how much the energy the thermostat is using when it’s set to 120º (and, oh yeah, the electric heater is using some too). * * * Holy Shit !!! I’m cherry-picking some temperature data from Sept. 12-14, 2001, and have stumbled on some Global Cooling sites … Holy Shit … are those people serious? Would anyone read that and even think they were serious? If that’s who y’all are fighting, it’s a losing cause … ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/132 "2014-01-09T20:57:58Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > My agenda is to debate the qualifiers “good” and “bad” in the context of climate change. And to clarify, I concede man-made climate change. Unfortunately, this still makes me a “Climate Change Denier”, simply because I’ll take Lower Cretaceous climate any day of the week than the crap I saw on my crocus this morning. > > Which post numbers did we discuss carbon cycle? Given x + y + z = 0, which is the “dominant variable”. [This publication](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geo.utexas.edu%2Fcourses%2F387h%2FPAPERS%2Fkiehl.pdf&ei=WvnOUsKeHtbooASL6YGoCA&usg=AFQjCNFZNLuIUJTXjUfvAgxExg-wDOvSbA&sig2=KaZIC02Vjn34h1I5KHQQPQ&bvm=bv.59026428,d.cGU) gives _signifantly_ different values for CO2 flux, and clearly states (in Table 3) that water vapor is the primary contributor. That’s why a statement like “most of that [flux is] due to CO2 plus all other GHGs” is throwing flags. I’m afraid that you’re fundamentally misinterpreting what that paper is saying and the context of those numbers. The paper is about the earth’s annual mean energy budget and as such, concerns itself with the\*\* total\*\* of all radiatively active gases in the atmosphere, **not just the net anthropogenic contributions**! That’s why the CO2 forcing given is so much higher than the number I quoted – it’s for all the CO2 in the atmosphere. It’s also why water vapor is included. WV is a radiatively active component of the atmosphere and is very relevant to energy budget calculation, but is equally **irrelevant** to AGW discussions because it’s just a passive feedback that responds to primary CO2 forcings. We’ve already had this discussion. Kevin Trenberth is a first-rate climate scientist who has been a lead author of both the third and the fourth IPCC WG1 assessment reports, so its ironic that you would try to use his paper to contradict the IPCC findings I gave – he helped write them! (they were more more or less the same in the AR4.) And while I know less of Jeffrey Kiehl he is a respected climate modeler at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. I have no issues with anything in that paper, and it doesn’t contradict anything I’ve been saying. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/133 "2014-01-09T21:10:32Z")
I wish we could move this discussion away from the tedious debate about all the micro-factors affecting climate change, and just start with the assumption that climate change is real, and that humans are very likely contributing to the long-term warming of the planet. I would like to do that because remaining focused on the basic science prevents us from having debates on the other aspects of global warming policy which are being ignored but are, in my opinion, more important and more interesting. They are: 1. Given that climate is a complex adaptive system, how far into the future can we reasonably predict it? 2. Given that warming is occurring, what is the feasibility of various policy options being proposed to combat it? For example, what if a carbon tax applied only to the U.S. acts to simply drive production out of the country into countries where there is less energy efficiency, causing the carbon footprint of our goods to actually go up? How can a carbon tax or any carbon restriction possibly work if Russia, China, and India won’t comply? Fossil fuels are fungible - restricting demand in one area will simply drive down the price and stimulate demand elsewhere. 3. How much are we willing to spend to prevent future damage to the planet? What are the cost/benefit tradeoffs? Some IPCC predictions show a net benefit for the planet. For those that show harm, the harm comes much later. How much are we willing to spend today to prevent a harm that occurs 100 years from now? How can we possibly even know what that harm will be, since that requires forecasting human population, economic, and migration trends 100 years into the future? The IPCC’s answer looks to me to be a punt - they just come up with some wide guesses to cover all the bases. In any event, if you apply standard accounting principles and use discount rates that we use for other investments, it becomes clear that the answer is pretty much ‘zero’ for how much we should spend today unless the harm in the future is very severe. So AGW policy proponents reject such discount rates in favor of a ‘social discount rate’ which essentially says, “we should spend as much as possible, because any future damage is unacceptable” To me, that’s a nonsensical position. There are two radical camps in this debate. First, there are the hard-core environmentalists that assume that ANY cost is worth even incremental improvements to the environment. Then on the other side there are the people who refuse to accept that any damage is happening at all - that it’s all just a grand conspiracy of lefties and scientists to scare us into submission so the one-world government can take over. Both sides are equally nuts. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/134 "2014-01-09T21:12:46Z")
I forgot to add this to the previous message so I’ll tack it on here. It’s kind of a different subtopic anyway. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > I’ll take Lower Cretaceous climate any day of the week than the crap I saw on my crocus this morning. Hey, I’m all for a warmer climate, too! 🙂 The problem here is the rate of change, which exceeds by several orders of magnitude the rate of change usually seen in rapid glacial transitions and by many orders of magnitude the slower non-cyclical changes. And two huge problems result from that. One is climate destabilization, with impacts like destructive extreme weather and changes in circulation systems that completely transform regional climates in sudden and unpredictable ways. The other is simply that the biosphere cannot adapt anywhere near quickly enough, so you get a host of abnormalities that have been hypothesized to be able, in their totality, to take our ecosystem past a biological tipping point into mass extinctions. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/135 "2014-01-09T22:08:49Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I wish we could move this discussion away from the tedious debate about all the micro-factors affecting climate change, and just start with the assumption that climate change is real, and that humans are very likely contributing to the long-term warming of the planet. > > I would like to do that because remaining focused on the basic science prevents us from having debates on the other aspects of global warming policy which are being ignored but are, in my opinion, more important and more interesting. I agree completely. But I think it should be noted that the reason basic science always seems to crop up in this type of discussion is that in most public venues and the mass media in particular it seems impossible to discuss policy issues without the spectre of denialism rearing its head, so instead of discussing the costs and methods of mitigation we find ourselves right back defending basic scientific findings that have long been settled. As the _New Scientist_ noted last October, this problem has become endemic in Congress. This is not likely to improve as long as the fossil fuel industry and other industrial stakeholders continue to wage a mostly surreptitious but well-funded war against science. A few initial thoughts, starting with your numbered points… 1. Predicting the climate at any level of fine granularity – either geographical or temporal – is indeed complex, but certain basics like the elevated level of CO2 and its long-term impact on the planet’s energy budget can be compared with climate history and give some good insights into the seriousness of the situation. 2. Carbon taxes are just a short-term instrument to drive behaviors and I’m not really sure now important they are in the larger scheme of things. You’re absolutely right though – climate policies have to be global and international agreements have to be inclusive. 3. Cost/benefit tradeoffs I think will become a moot point once it becomes clearer how extremely costly it will be to lives and property to **not** take action. This is no mere aphorism but expresses the views of the global insurance industry, the World Bank, and even the US military, from a global security perspective. The IPCC addresses the latest findings in Working Group 2 which will have a new assessment report out later this year, while WG3 deals with mitigation. As the IPCC and others have noted, not all mitigation measures need be costly and some even have negative costs. Robert Socolo and Stephen Pacala wrote a well-regarded paper ten years ago on a concept they called [stabilization wedges](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/305/5686/968.abstract) that provided a roadmap to cost-effective mitigation without any radical new technologies, and it’s still noteworthy today. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > There are two radical camps in this debate. First, there are the hard-core environmentalists that assume that ANY cost is worth even incremental improvements to the environment. Then on the other side there are the people who refuse to accept that any damage is happening at all - that it’s all just a grand conspiracy of lefties and scientists to scare us into submission so the one-world government can take over. Both sides are equally nuts. Maybe so, but the two sides are not equivalent – a bunch of kids with signs is no match for a $12 trillion global economic powerhouse and its network of denialist front groups that has been undermining science for more than 15 years with PR tactics that would put tobacco lobbyists to shame, really ramping up the heavy artillery from around the time the IPCC Third Assessment in 2001 started to garner public attention. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/136 "2014-01-10T03:22:37Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > WV is a radiatively active component of the atmosphere and is very relevant to energy budget calculation, but is equally **irrelevant** to AGW discussions because it’s just a passive feedback that responds to primary CO2 forcings. Your discourse violates of the laws of thermodynamics … that’s why your ideas smell like perpetual motion. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > There are two radical camps in this debate. First, there are the hard-core environmentalists that assume that ANY cost is worth even incremental improvements to the environment. Then on the other side there are the people who refuse to accept that any damage is happening at all - that it’s all just a grand conspiracy of lefties and scientists to scare us into submission so the one-world government can take over. Both sides are equally nuts. HEY … no way is THEIR crackpotism the equal of MY crackpotism … don’t make that mistake again. Why, I can spin up a yarn that’ll have them rolling on their backs piddling themselves in just hours. We can project climate fairly far into the future, but the margin of error increases. If we are reasonable about the uncertainty, then the projections themselves are reasonable. At some point, the projections themselves are no better than a coin flip, if I tell you I flipped a coin and it said it’s going to rain … you’ll know exactly how to prepare. International agreements, like the ones that were made at the end of WWII to stop trying to slaughter each other. Those have held by the barest of threads, now you ask for comprehensive and verifiable energy management policies. I kinda hate coming across as a highly American, but we’re the best damned polluters the world has ever known. _T. rex_ has nothing on us when it comes to atmospheric cesium. The United States manages their CO2 emissions, the problem is solved. Costs … oh boy … let’s go back to the 1970s, when all these arguments started. The hippies got the government to make new laws controlling fossil fuel power plant emissions. A lot of them had grandfather clauses in them, the new laws only applied to power plants built in the future, old ones were allowed to keep operating. Now add time and Democrats, we’re in a position where building a new power plant is WAY too expensive, the old ones are cheaper to maintain. That’s just to mitigate all the rest of the pollution, think of the cost of sequestering the carbon and water on top of that. The ratepayer will pay for this, in the form of higher energy bills. $10 a gallon of gas and you’ll see steep drops in carbon dioxide emissions. The economy will take another dive … but that’s the point … we emit so much because our economy is so big, we could shrink our economy to reduce emissions. You’ll not get the votes even if you have proof, which we don’t … the subject deserves research. This could also be a good thing. Increasing temperature may signal the dawn of human prosperity beyond our wildest dreams … the end of war … famine forgotten … peace and brotherhood for all the peoples of the world. God has forgiven us our sins and has ordered the Satanic ice to be gone … … yeah, and the ocean can clean itself too. [giggle] ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/137 "2014-01-10T03:51:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I wish we could move this discussion away from the tedious debate about all the micro-factors affecting climate change, and just start with the assumption that climate change is real, and that humans are very likely contributing to the long-term warming of the planet. > > I would like to do that because remaining focused on the basic science prevents us from having debates on the other aspects of global warming policy which are being ignored but are, in my opinion, more important and more interesting. > > They are: > > 1. Given that climate is a complex adaptive system, how far into the future can we reasonably predict it? > > 2. Given that warming is occurring, what is the feasibility of various policy options being proposed to combat it? For example, what if a carbon tax applied only to the U.S. acts to simply drive production out of the country into countries where there is less energy efficiency, causing the carbon footprint of our goods to actually go up? How can a carbon tax or any carbon restriction possibly work if Russia, China, and India won’t comply? Fossil fuels are fungible - restricting demand in one area will simply drive down the price and stimulate demand elsewhere. > > 3. How much are we willing to spend to prevent future damage to the planet? What are the cost/benefit tradeoffs? Some IPCC predictions show a net benefit for the planet. For those that show harm, the harm comes much later. How much are we willing to spend today to prevent a harm that occurs 100 years from now? How can we possibly even know what that harm will be, since that requires forecasting human population, economic, and migration trends 100 years into the future? The IPCC’s answer looks to me to be a punt - they just come up with some wide guesses to cover all the bases. > > In any event, if you apply standard accounting principles and use discount rates that we use for other investments, it becomes clear that the answer is pretty much ‘zero’ for how much we should spend today unless the harm in the future is very severe. So AGW policy proponents reject such discount rates in favor of a ‘social discount rate’ which essentially says, “we should spend as much as possible, because any future damage is unacceptable” To me, that’s a nonsensical position. > > There are two radical camps in this debate. First, there are the hard-core environmentalists that assume that ANY cost is worth even incremental improvements to the environment. Then on the other side there are the people who refuse to accept that any damage is happening at all - that it’s all just a grand conspiracy of lefties and scientists to scare us into submission so the one-world government can take over. Both sides are equally nuts. Hi Sam! How’s it going? Is it going pretty good with you? It’s going pretty good with me. Thanks for asking. Please don’t confuse the thread by injecting common sense into the discussion. I’ve seen you do it before. It pleases me. But it’s generally a waste of your time. 1. Nuclear 2. More diesel, more easily for more cars 3. Modest carbon tax at the consumer end (pump, meter, airline gate) 4. Congestion pricing Is probably a decent start. That ought to do it for now. Oh, and cut the billions in government research subsidies of “climate change” research and loans to “green energy” technologies, and use it to provide a modest matching benefit for coal scrubber investment, which is a proven technology that can take immediate advantage of considerable US resources. There. Call me in 10 years. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/138 "2014-01-10T04:45:28Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Your discourse violates of the laws of thermodynamics … that’s why your ideas smell like perpetual motion. The distinction between a forcing and a feedback has nothing to do with thermodynamics, and it’s one of the most fundamental principles in climate science. Example: Increasing levels of CO2 cause the Arctic to warm, causing decadel-level reductions in ice sheet cover, reducing Arctic albedo, and thus causing the Arctic to warm even faster. Damn that Arctic ice having the audacity to melt – it’s a major **cause** of global warming! :rolleyes: > [@watchwolf49](#): > > HEY … no way is THEIR crackpotism the equal of MY crackpotism I’m sure that every advocacy organization in the world can be counted on to say that they’re right and their opponents are wrong. But science is not an “advocacy organization”, it’s the highest human achievement in the quest for objective and testable truth. To paraphrase my recollection of Bill Maher on the “real truth is somewhere in the middle” canard, if the consensus of the world’s climate scientists is telling me one thing and a weather pundit on Telemundo with big tits is telling me something else, I’m going to go with the climate scientists. Again I would remind you of the truly massive campaign being waged against climate science by the most moneyed vested interests in the world. Really, I’m with **Sam Stone** on this. We should be discussing remediation instead of attacking the science. Although the mind-boggling extent to which the science is, in fact, being attacked is a fascinating socioeconomic discussion in its own right. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > We can project climate fairly far into the future, but the margin of error increases. Counter-intuitively, the farther we project (up to a point, of course), the more accurately we can predict the consequences of sustained forcings, because in the long term the chaotic effects of weather and transient changes cancel out and the change in the earth’s total energy budget prevails. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/139 "2014-01-10T05:30:57Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Please don’t confuse the thread by injecting common sense into the discussion. I’ve seen you do it before. It pleases me. But it’s generally a waste of your time. > > 1. Nuclear > 2. More diesel, more easily for more cars > 3. Modest carbon tax at the consumer end (pump, meter, airline gate) > 4. Congestion pricing > > [snip] … provide a modest matching benefit for coal scrubber investment, which is a proven technology that can take immediate advantage of considerable US resources. I agree mostly, but would keep alternative sources on the table, and let local and state governments decide themselves what funding they want to give to research and development. There’s taxable profit to be had and I’m fine with my state getting all those jobs. I think the carbon tax should only be assessed against carbon dioxide producing energy sources, I’m tapped into those Columbia River wind farms so I don’t think I should have to pay that tax for my electric power. I don’t know what coal scrubbers do, and I thought they were actually pretty expensive. If you want to pay for them with carbon taxes, go for it. I’ll have my great grandchildren contact your great grandchildren in about a 100 years, s’okay? And hey … invest in U-Haul stock. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/140 "2014-01-10T08:38:09Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Then on the other side there are the people who refuse to accept that any damage is happening at all How are you defining “damage” here? By way of example, the IPCC asserts (and I accept) that (1) global surface temperatures increased between 1900 and 1950; and (2) this increase was – generally speaking – not due to mankind’s CO2 emissions. Although it seems nothing noticeably bad happened as a result of this warming, it seems pretty much certain that somebody somewhere was harmed in some way. Does this warming count as “damage” as you are using the word? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984.md?page=8)