I’d like to point out that studies have shown a decrease in average temperatures over Greenland.
Cite - a non-neutral source but with public-domain information
Golly, gosh and shucks. I am impressed by the level of unwarranted personal attacks. I ask a serious question. Which is the best way to spend our limited resources in the situation we find ourselves? Every resource we spend on reducing pollution cannot be spent on remediation.
How much should we do of each? A simple question. Is it more effective to reduce pollution or to buy sandbags? Which will save more lives and property? Or better yet which will yield the most results and when?
I simply want to know.
If you would like to resume name-calling, enjoy. I am asking a serious question and would really like to know your thoughts on the matter. Should you have any.
The gases being released today start causing problems today, so lowering the release of the gases would have an immediate effect. But I’ve read that the gases currently in the atmosphere would continue to have an effect for fifty years.
That said, don’t underestimate how bad the problem could become. Some scientists have theorized it’s possible for the atmosphere to jump to a new equilibrium - instead of normal temperatures ranging between zero and a hundred degrees (fahrenheit) it might achieve a new balance where normal temperatures vary between three hundred and four hundred degrees. Sandbags aren’t going to fix that.
I agree with you on the gratuitous name-calling; I was trying to be civil, but despite the recent outburst I would still ask that you address my question.
Why is this a zero-sum game? Who, exactly, decreed that it has to be one or the other, but not both? Why is it that we can spends billions and billions on an ill-concieved military adventure, but lack the resources to reduce greenhouse emissions and/or reduce energy consumption? How could the Japanese grow their economy in the-what, 1980’s- while simultaneously reducing per capita energy consumption? What law of physics are we contravening, exactly?
Your arguments are basically logical falacies, except without the logic.
Moderator’s Warning: Alaricthegoth, don’t refer to other posters in GD as “repug shills”.
In all fairness, I didn’t get the impression Alaric was referring to any specific posters. I thought he was talking about people in the general public. I might be wrong?
athelas, “global warming” is best actually referred to as “global climate change” which will, on average be a global warming, but is more devastingly characterized by significant and rapid shifts in climate with much greater volatility of conditions and more swings away from any mean towards the extremes. Certain areas will be significantly cooler and others warmer, some wetter and some drier. But most areas will experience climates different than what their ecosystems and economies are adapted for.
Ogre the evidence (reviewed in many past threads) is conclusive that anthropogenic emissions are certainly a significant part of what is going on. There is some debate as to how much of current global climate change is attributable to human activity. There is no debate that continued emission at our current rate will drastically exacerbate the situation and that decreasing our current levels of emissions will decrease the degree of change significantly. The debates among the experts are only about how likely it is to be how bad. Why do so may people seem to be so fixated on proving that all of current climate change is anthropogenic anyway? The fire that is approaching my imagined refinery may have been human caused or it may have been caused by a lightening strike. Who cares? I can still conclude that I better keep freely the flowing oil out of its way and get the fire trucks there pronto.
Paul, my analogy stands despite the sillies made at its expense. You will have no choice but to abate when the time comes. Do you try to cut off the flow of fuel to the fire or do you say that you should conserve your energy to throw water at it? Is that really the choice? Or do you really have a situation where you know that you will have to waste more water if you do not try to shut down the valves now even as you prepare to deal with its consequences?
I have no bone to pick with reducing output of greenhouse gases. If it would really help, it ought to be fairly easy to prove.
But if we have a couple of billion (or as Doctor Evil would say) even a couple of million guilders to work on the problem, would those limited resources be spent on this or that?
Every dollar we spend on reducing greenhouse emissions is one less dollar available for eight hundred dollar toilet seats. Each buck expended on sandbags means less money for clean needles for addicts. We cannot approach any problem by simply shoveling money on all possible courses of action. It as true of this issue as it is on school reform or any other problem.
Sorry for taking the slam seriously. I failed to note it was A the G writing.
No, Greenland was not ice-free. If it were, the oceans would have been about 7 meters higher than they are today (and there is no way that the glaciers there could have built back up to their current size in the limited amount of time).
The evidence from several climate proxy reconstructions is that by the late 20th century, we were warmer than we have been in at least the last 1000-2000 years in the Northern Hemisphere as a whole…and, of course, the temperatures are expected to continue to rise. (Data is still too sparse in the Southern Hemisphere.) Even if we were to stop emitting all CO2 tomorrow, the temperature would go up another ~0.5 C because the climate system is not yet in equilibrium with the current greenhouse gas levels, as studies of the structure of the heating in the oceans have recently demonstrated.
Well, when you look on more regional scales, you do see larger variations. However, I have never understood how this statement about grapes in England, even if true, is supposed to prove anything. They grow grapes here in the Finger Lakes region of New York State and I can guarantee you that the general climate is colder than in England (the winters are much colder although the summers may be hotter).
Well, it seems like the National Academy of Science of the U.S. and 10 other countries disagrees with you. They say:
This is not to say that we know all the details yet, but we know enough to know that it is foolhardy just to continue on a business-as-usual path.
in the spirit of *“re-education”, I must confess that altho I had incontemplation the wide and varid catalog of administration shills on the board, that particular shout-out to John Donne was responsive to Biz’s rejoinder to partner Paul, to whom I apologize if , indeed, he is not a republican.
(If he IS a republican, while chastened and silenced, I do not apologize)
*Lest I incur further discipline for comparing the board administrators to Mao Tse Tung, let me assure them that he is high among my heroes, (quelle surprise…) and therefore the reference to re-education should be taken as ironic and not perjorative…
Yes, but the assertion is being made that the increased rate of glacier melting is due to manmade global warming. The fact that atmospheric temperatures (the ones first affected by greenhouse gases) have decreased seem to show that this is not a result of global warming. It is possible that geological processes or other unknown factors are involved, but this evidence suggests that there is another factor at work.
Here are some more sources. In precis, the salient points in summary of the recent British government’s DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affaris) climate change conference is as follows:
Download the report and other supporting papers here.
This is much more than a hypothesis. It is a scientific fact. While are emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere are only a few percent of the total amount of CO2 that cycles in and out of the atmosphere each year, this cycle was indeed in equilibrium and our emissions have thrown it out of equilibrium. We are taking carbon that has long been locked away in fossil fuels and rapidly (at least on geologic timescales) liberating it into the atmosphere. So far, the rest of the carbon cycle has been able to adjust to take up about 1/2 of the fossil fuel emissions that are released, although there is some belief that some of the sinks will start to saturate.
CO2 levels have risen from the pre-industrial baseline of ~280 ppm to ~380 ppm today. Ice core records show that this current level is higher than anything the earth has experienced in the last 700,000 years and the much sparser data we have on CO2 going back further than that suggests that it is the highest level in ~20 million years. (See here for CO2 levels on various timescales.)
That is only claimed to be a fact, as far as I can tell, by clearly biased sources on this issue. Do you have some reputable summary of the literature that makes this claim?
fuck no he does not
Yeah, but there’s no evidence that AIDs is too far along to stop. If scientists are making fact-supported claims that there’s nothing we can do to avert disaster, Paul is right, it would be folly to waste resources trying to avert disaster. If disaster cannot be averted then I’m guessing the plan has to change to just getting through it and adapting our lives to higher temperature and sea levels.
If that’st he case then I suggest we have the government start funneling money towards massive partying.
There’s a principle in management that you don’t worry about the problems that you can’t fix. If people are showing us that we can’t fix an apocalypse then we can’t afford to worry about it.
I also however find these doomsday scenarios unlikely. The earth has been through some pretty insane stuff in the past, including massive increases in greenhouse gas and being hit by enormous rocks from space.
- massive partying.*
at last a platform on which we can come together…
In that case I nominate myself for the Get loaded and have a good time committee.
First proposal: a luau on a beach in Iceland.
excellent.
Shall we bring our own blondes, or can we simply rely on the plentiful local supply…