So you are saying that the ice ages were cause by solar variation? Well, yes, but not the kind of solar variation you have in mind. Of interest, we are supposed to have been cooling based on this for at least several thousand years, but it reversed, contrary to all expectations, in the past couple hundred years. At least, all expectations based on natural cycles:
Note also the graph they provide, which shows that for the Arctic, temperatures gradually fell with no clear evidence of a Little Ice Age, unless you call the lowest point until the past couple centuries the LIA, which did dip a bit around 1600, but the warming since has completely overwhelmed previous variations.
Also, it is now known that carbon dioxide was feedback and forcing during ice age-interglacial transitions; that is, CO2 increased before it started warming, so CO2 actually lead the warming, just as it is now, and the forcing from CO2 currently is increasing so fast, that it can offset a permanent drop in solar activity in just 7 years (near the end of the page), if not less, given continued acceleration in emissions (and, newer reconstructions of TSI like this one (PDF (right-click and rotate clockwise to view), see last page, including note about solar influence on climate, “If TSI varies less, then the climate system’s sensitivity to solar forcing must be substantially larger to maintain a solar influence on climate, if any.”) suggest that the Maunder Minimum was nothing more than what we had a few years ago, just longer; that is, TSI drops to a “bottom” and doesn’t fall any further, never mind that solar variation is far too small to have much of an effect; just look at a graph of global temperature and try to pick out an 11 year cycle).
Maybe I missed this somewhere in the thread, but does that address the OP’s question? There are two axes to the question: Is significant climate change happening, and is it significantly due to human activities?
I’d suggest that the consensus that climate change is “real” is far more important than any consensus on its cause - we can research and debate the cause while concentrating first on coping strategies and second on what corrections we may be able to apply. The time frame dictates other priorities than “finding patient Zero.”
The OP asks about “the consensus”, which includes the cause. And if you can’t agree on the cause, you can’t agree on the fix. If the cause is “the earth just doin’ it’s thang”, then what are we supposed to do about it?
There are certain people who cannot accept reality. Some are ignorant. Some are afraid that it would hurt someone’s bottom line. Some don’t want to make any sacrifices for anything for any reason. At some point, they have to be left behind, we cannot wait to convince them because they lack the capacity for convincing. Time to ignore the voices of ignorance and start working around them to effect change.
Let’s say climate change is 100% human-caused. Let’s say we nail down the exact causes (not the generally believed causes) in the next few years. Even from that position, I don’t know anyone reliable who believes we can reverse the change/damage in less than a multi-decade timespan, if not something on the order of a century or more.
So for the immediate future, it doesn’t matter as much what the cause might be as that we start finding and implementing coping strategies - especially those that will lead to ways to diminish worldwide tension, upheaval and war. My concern is that all of the effort is focused on finding the “cause” (which smells a lot like “assigning the blame”) and technological approaches to “fixing the problem” (when we aren’t 100% sure what the problem is, even if we assume a 100% anthropogenic cause)… neither of which matter in the short to moderate term.
We can work out a fix, whether it’s by modifying human activities or (very unlikely) finding a way to outfox Ma Nature. We can implement those fixes and simultaneously improve our understanding of both cause and fix. But those things need to be at least paralleled by intense effort on coping and adjustment to what may be a new reality - forever, or for a goodly portion of the lifespan of those now living. The real problems of climate change are bad enough; I don’t want to live out my life in a world at continual war over the consequences.
And I don’t see much being done, even theoretically, about geopolitical adjustment to the long-term changes, be they reversible or not. The public dialogue is focused on the wrong things, and public dialogue drives political and scientific action. First things first, and assigning blame or refining 100-year corrective programs are not ‘first.’
Can you give an example of a “fix” that assumes climate change is not caused by us? Obviously your first example (modify human activity) doesn’t fit the bill, since the assumption* is that human activity isn’t the cause. Perhaps with your second example (outfox Ma Nature) you could be more specific?
Also, we’re not going to reverse things. It’s too late for that. The best we can hope, baring some breakthrough technology, is to slow or halt the effect in the future.
*n.b.: This is not my assumption, but just my inability to accept that we can work on a fix without agreeing what the cause is.
I’m not sure if you’re missing my point or just assuming I’m being more argumentative than I believe I am.
When a ship is sinking - and yes, I believe there is a ship, and yes, I believe it’s sinking - you don’t hold a conference to determine the cause of the sinking, nor draw up elaborate plans to raise the ship again… you do everything you can to get people and salvageable values off the ship, as quickly as you can.
THEN you worry about the cause of the sinking, to assign blame and hopefully to keep stupid captains from running their ships up on the rocks to wave at Mom.
THEN you worry about how to raise a few megatons of sunken ship, and whether it’s even possible to do so.
While there’s no reason someone far removed from the sinking couldn’t convene the conference and hearings, the passengers shouldn’t have to wait around for their conclusions to be final and approved before the lifeboats are launched.
I suggest that, geopolitically, we’re at the “launch all lifeboats” stage, and anyone who doesn’t have a contribution to that effort can occupy themselves with analysis and remediation of the problem - the first step of which may take more decades yet, and the second, possibly centuries. Politically… we are out of time.
John, I really can’t tell if you’re missing every point I make or just want to argue. Or just want to ride me because I don’t hold exactly the same line of thinking you do about this.
The “ship” and all that is an analogy. You do get that, right?
Any solution to climate change - defined as putting things back more or less the way they’ve been since the last little ice age - is going to take some very long span of years, right? Maybe a century? Not likely to be less than 20-25 years? Dis/agree?
So with the changes already causing havoc in weather and food production, which is the priority: to figure out the details of why, or to figure out how to sociopolitically survive the next few decades without China and middle Europe going to war with Russia over arable land, or Canada taking ownership of the US for the same reason?
Nothing at all about getting a good start on geopolitical adaptation and coping mechanisms gets in the way of the technical and ecological issues. But all the brilliant sciencing and teching in the world (literally) may be of little value if we’ve destroyed civilization in the meantime, fighting over cropland.
If you’re convinced nothing matters until we have a globally acclaimed model of the cause, I have nothing much more to say except your fluorescent lights are going to go out one day and you’re going to have a helluva surprise when you look out your science building door.
Of course. But it’s a bad analogy. It doesn’t help the argument, as I noted, so I’m not sure why you brought it up.
It’s not important how long it takes. What matters is when you start. We need to start NOW. So, if you’ve got a solution that you think you can get people to agree to if they don’t think climate change is caused by us, what is it? Name something specific we can do right now that doesn’t involve changing human behavior.
Who is predicting that those things are going to happen in the next few decades? That’s something you’ll have to convince me about!
Here’s the thing— we’ve already established that everyone (or almost everyone that matters) agrees that climate change is happening. So whatever we need to deal with the current effects will be the easy part. The hard part is convincing the deniers that the cause is man made and that we need to change our behavior. I don’t see this dichotomy that you are seeing.
Here’s an analogy for you, and it’s a good one: We need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Not a single one.
Which is why I am amused that Sandy and the like are a wake up call.
A wake up call to do what? Get rid of the human population?
Some of us get all upset about AGW and the coming changes. How turble that we are trashing the earth!*
Um…what was North America like before humans showed up? And exactly how much worse is climate change going to be than what we’ve done to the natural ecology so far?
Anyway, back to your question. Contrary to GIGObuster’s sweet insistence that we can change what we consume and control our waste:
No, dear GIGObuster, we cannot. Al Gore and I literally cannot make ourselves step up to what would be required, and neither can most people. It is absolutely impossible to crunch any numbers that make a realistic difference if you accept the current paradigm of AGW and the current population explosion and the human drive to live as well as possible and the inevitability of the tragedy of the commons as a driver for collective behavior.
Why just this year I have stumbled upon the freshy fresh technique. So even my toilet regime just began consuming more than last year. In a thousand ways over, this is a metaphor for our lot as a human population.
Now sure: you could nuke people off. Or you could blow up the entire power grid to smithereens so we have to get all Tanzanian for our carbon footprints, but I’m labeling those sorts of things draconian.
*It is terrible. I’m just mocking the recreational outrage of it.
See, this is what drives sketics.
See End the Ice Age - not responsible for text, I haven`t read it in depth to determine if it is serious or a CC skeptic, but they do question the accepted cause.
Lookinng at the first graph - if global temperature patterns followed previous patterns - a quick spike - we should have been fighting glaciers about 5000 years ago or more. Instead, we seem to be in a cycle analogous to the one 400.000 years ago which shows a much longer warm spell. Unless global warming can be attributed to the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians, something very different is going on. Sceintists who claim we’ve stalled the ice age are as correct as those who say there is no global warming. We have no idea what is or should be going on, or what damage we have really done.
We can only guess. Deep down, we only have a superficial clue what is really happening.
Just, dumping historically unprecedented levels of CO2 into the atmosphere cannot be a good thing.
The basic problem with climate change debates - there is so much uncertainty and scientific debate on the details that there is no wonder the skeptics jump on and emphasize the discrepancies to attempt to debunk the entire notion.
As for what to do - what is there to do. The first world is not going to close the gas stations, shut off the coal electricity, and let people freeze in the dark to stop using natural gas. The third world is not going to accept a first world resting on their solar powered laurels telling the third world to stop burning things. Even a lifestyle shift to half the carbon emission we have now would still mean a massive climate shift. We can drive Prius hybrids, use CF bulbs, programmable thermostats and telecommute, the CO2 emissions will still continue to climb. There’s simply too many of us and we refuse to give up living.
I suspect we will change when carbon sources start to run out - traffic will die when gas becomes $20 a gallon, insulation will replace house heating and air conditioning when insulation is cheaper that power, computers will become smaller, less power-hungry and solar powered when the tech arrives, mass transit will replace cars when gas is too expensive.
Other than that, I don`t think anyone has any answers, other than build up the levees or move uphill.
Most of the discrepancies exist in the pretended world made by fake skeptics like the one you are relying on.
So is better to check what the scientists are saying and not going to poisoned wells for information.
Check #1 and #11 because most of what you are trying to pass in your post was already explained or debunked.
As for what to do, just realizing that what we are doing now is saving pennies, and wasting pounds later should be enough to realize we should not listen to the fake skeptics FUD.
And as I remember, you still never got back in another thread to explain why it was possible to deal with issues like that without removing most of the population.
Really, John, that’s my point. And we are *not *doing both - that’s my further point.
You seem to be completely missing my point in your effort to convince me of things I’ve already conceded - things on which we are already in high accord.
That you insist the only important aspects are the scientific and technical ones while evincing spectacularly naive denial of the geopolitical consequences - as naive as the most insistent of CC deniers - means you’re the poster boy for the bloc I am trying to address, here.
You really think that there will be no geopolitical consequences from the shifts caused by climate change over the next several decades? And that if there are, they’re not worthy of any consideration while science and engineering beaver away at the solution - assuming there even is one?
(I get it, I get it - your view is that the problem is human activity and fixing that human activity is the solution. Fine. Great. You’ve failed to note that I’ve never once disagreed with this position. But even if you’re 100% right, the time scale of the correction is still enough to destabilize governments worldwide… or do you really think that promising a technical solution that runs through our grandchildren’s lives will make thirsty and starving nations bide their time?)
Near as I can tell from your video, this guy thinks that because we solved the problem of sewage, we can solve the problem of converting our energy grid fast enough to keep the billions of new souls wanting to live like me and Al Gore from making too much CO2. Unfortunately, the video stopped before he came up with an actual plan or presented any numbers.
I’m sure we can probably also win the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, Leave No Child Behind and create World Peace. But uh…if we do all those things, we’re still going to be paving over the earth and farming it to death to keep us newly-green masses fed.
Look, AGW is a lovely Great Cause. And the people who are worried sick about it are generally sweet in their concern for the earth. But they’re addressing the house fire of excess CO2 while the volcano of overpopulation is about to blow up under their neighborhood.
