New information surrounding global warming

[neu5eeCh]

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Ivar Giaever put it best, in my opinion- "Global warming has become a new religion." (citation)

98% of climate scientist agree on the climate change and global warming. Why? Because that's the science. That's the evidence. That's the facts. Citing a report by a party hack driven by politics is not science.

Random fact: water vapor is a far more effective radiative than even the most vilified bugaboo; Co2- its contribution to the greenhouse effect is over double that of Co2. (citation)
Seems to me the real problem is all this water laying around the place! Stop the water cycle!

Yeah, and? What does that have to do with CO2? All that gasoline being spilling in your livingroom? Don't worry about it, Cortman. Just be glad it's not Nitroglycerin because, you know, nitroglycerin is a far more effective explosive than even the most vilified gasoline! Have a cigarette! LOL!

Planetsave.com? You can hardly claim unbiased citation...

Yes I can. That's the beauty of science. You can spout off all you want (called FUD by the way) but prove it. If a scientist makes an assertion, test it. You think planetsave is just as biased as Fox News? Let's test it. Let's compare the facts as reported by both organizations. I'm willing to do it just for the sheer entertainment. Go ahead. Make my day.

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, and? What does that have to do with CO2? All that gasoline being spilling in your livingroom? Don't worry about it, Cortman. Just be glad it's not Nitroglycerin because, you know, nitroglycerin is a far more effective explosive than even the most vilified gasoline! Have a cigarette! LOL!

Well, more to the point, the amount or effect of water vapor isn't the thing we're changing, we wouldn't to change levels if we could for a lot of other reasons, and it's doing exactly what we need it to be doing as it is. We also wouldn't want CO2 levels to be 150 ppm any more than we want them to be 400 ppm.

So it's more like saying, sure, your house is on fire, but you were already heating it up by running the furnace, so you wanted it hot, right? Here you go.

[cortman]

98% of climate scientist agree on the climate change and global warming.

Citation?
How about I do that for you: http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
Peter Doran & Maggie Zimmerman of University of Illinois conducted the survey of 10,257 earth scientists that is the basis for your "98%" figure. Of those 10,257, a little over 3000 responded. Of those they picked 79 individuals who were successful in getting over half their papers published by climate science journals. Of those 79, 76 agreed that global temperatures have risen since 1800. That's where your 98% number comes from. 76 of 79 people. In 2009. Before you call FUD, read the survey- it's all there.

How about this? http://www.petitionproject.org/quali...of_signers.php
A public poll/petition rejecting global warming and climate change. Currently 9,029 scientists with Ph.D have signed- 3,805 of which are climate specialists. In light of the 3,146 climate scientists that responded to the "98% poll", I would cast grave doubts on the truth of your statement.

Why? Because that's the science. That's the evidence. That's the facts. Citing a report by a party hack driven by politics is not science.

Before a blood vessel is burst here, do understand that Ivar Giaever was stating his *opinion* and that my *opinion* coincides with his *opinion*.

Yeah, and? What does that have to do with CO2? All that gasoline being spilling in your livingroom? Don't worry about it, Cortman. Just be glad it's not Nitroglycerin because, you know, nitroglycerin is a far more effective explosive than even the most vilified gasoline! Have a cigarette! LOL!

My point is that the CO2 craze is driven by politics- even though water vapor accounts for far more of the greenhouse effect than CO2 (see my citation in previous post) there is absolutely nothing we can or should do about it- it's obviously been going and taking care of itself, not to mention is of some importance to the planet. Since humans produce CO2, there is something to grab onto (and in the case of most governments, tax). The whole hype is political- if you try to point out the fallacy of it, you obviously don't care about the environment.

Yes I can. That's the beauty of science.

No, you cannot. My point was that Planetsave.com is obviously biased TOWARD belief in global warming/climate change, just as some people in Fox News are biased AGAINST belief in global warming. Please don't try to deny that, lol.

You can spout off all you want (called FUD by the way) but prove it. If a scientist makes an assertion, test it. You think planetsave is just as biased as Fox News? Let's test it.

I proved my points by citing actual papers and publications, not news sources. I would posit that that's better proof than citing either Planetsave.com OR Fox news.

Let's compare the facts as reported by both organizations. I'm willing to do it just for the sheer entertainment. Go ahead. Make my day.

Rather than take you up on that, I would offer you a piece of advice from Mark Twain- "Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference"

[dwaite]

Citation?&lt;br&gt;<br>
How about this? &lt;a href="http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php" target="_blank"&gt;http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;<br>
A public poll/petition rejecting global warming and climate change. Currently 9,029 scientists with Ph.D have signed- 3,805 of which are climate specialists. In light of the 3,146 climate scientists that responded to the "98% poll", I would cast grave doubts on the truth of your statement.&lt;br&gt;<br>

I'll give you this - http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/. Now, to be fair it only reports a ~97% agreement, but since it's based on actual research papers and not some guys opinion poll on the internet, I'm going to go ahead and say it trumps.

Rather than take you up on that, I would offer you a piece of advice from Mark Twain- "Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference"

Soneone challenges you to a debate based on facts, and you respond saying that you don't think CO2 is important, and that it'll all sort itself out in the end - a position not supported by any facts - then say it's not worth debating further and duck out before someone calls you out on it. We can all see who the fool is here...

[cortman]

I'll give you this - http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/. Now, to be fair it only reports a ~97% agreement, but since it's based on actual research papers and not some guys opinion poll on the internet, I'm going to go ahead and say it trumps.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see any actual figures as to number of people queried, etc. Which was what I was pointing out in my previous post (and the whole reason for pointing it out)

Soneone challenges you to a debate based on facts, and you respond saying that you don't think CO2 is important, and that it'll all sort itself out in the end - a position not supported by any facts - then say it's not worth debating further and duck out before someone calls you out on it.

Like I said, I think Giaever put it best- it's a new religion, and people take religion very seriously and personally. Arguing over religion is pointless at best, and at worst can cause a lot of problems (hm, that's why religion as a topic is banned in these forums?)
Also, the challenge was to prove the comparitive objectivity of planetsave.com and Fox news- not a debate I want to get into (for sure not on a GNU/Linux support forum)

We can all see who the fool is here...

Indeed- let me be the first to admit that I am not an environmental scientist, just some guy on an online forums.
The quote is tongue-in-cheek- my implication was that if we persisted in a envireligious bashing contest we would probably both make ourselves look foolish.

[dwaite]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see any actual figures as to number of people queried, etc. Which was what I was pointing out in my previous post (and the whole reason for pointing it out)

Well...that's kind of the point. This paper didn't query people, it looked at the findings of published scientific papers to build a consensus. You may have to read the methods section to get the exact numbers involved - this is a scientific article, not a blog or media publication.

As to relevance, you seemed to be conflating the previous comment about the 98% scientists consensus with lay-people, and then showing random surveys to back it up (that 98% number comes from a paper in Nature - I could find it for you if you like, but it's probably behind a paywall unless you or your work/university/school have a subscription). I felt this was a much more objective way of showing the point, because this paper summarises ALL the current RESEARCH on the topic. It did not study people and their opinions, it studied scientific results and findings of reserach in the field. Whether you identify as a religious nut, tree-hugger, or oil-paid talking head - this paper reports THE SCIENCE on the topic. If you're shown that 97% of the relevant research points to a single conclusion, then waving your hands and calling it peoples personal religion is just silly. It's qualitatively no different than the tactics used in creationism, anti-vaxination, or moon-landing conspiracy theories.

I certainly don't deny there are plenty of people out there claiming that the world will be a barren desert by 2050, with a mean global temperature of 50 degrees, and we'll all be dead because we used too much plastic or whatever it is that they're saying now. But within the context of this thread, that's not what you're arguing with.

At the end of the day though, you're right. We're 2 dudes arguing on an internet forum. I'm pretty sure there's an xkcd comic about this...

[llanitedave]

Anyone who argues in this day and age that the planet is not warming, or that human-induced CO2 and methane production are not the cause of the warming that does exist, is an idiot. Simple as that.

However, that doesn't help in the discussion of what to do about it. I don't think it can be argued that returning CO2 levels to prehuman quantities is going to return the climate to some stable, edenic state. Glacial cycles seem to be controlled by Milankovitch cycles, but those three independent variations don't occur in phase with each other, so the response is very complex. There's a pretty good argument that, if not for global warming, Earth might be slipping towards another glacial cycle already.

If that's the case, would lowering CO2 emissions send us back to the ice age? There are so many other factors in play here as well -- the amount of oxygen-producing forest and ocean algae, the amount of space cleared for agriculture or paved with asphalt or concrete, the amount of sediment entering the oceans...

Understanding the climate is a huge challenge, and trying to control it is going to be impossible. Just because we caused the problem does not mean we can solve it, especially at our current levels of understanding. This is going to be harder than anyone appreciates.

[Sef]

This thread seems have run its course, and is close to / has crossed the line into politics, so closed.