Global warming
 

Inspired by ETS debates....

Re: Global warming
 

No question, humans have a negligible effect on the natural warming and cooling of the earth. I won't even call it global warming.

Re: Global warming
 

I am not a sceptic - but believe it's not just humans.

Interesting how we have gone to Climate change now and not Global Warming.

CO2 levels are going through the roof and very recently too. There is evidence to suggest I guess it is man-made. Apparently the CFC lobby back in the 80s etc really worked (don't ask me how it was measured).

If I'm not mistaken everyone mistakes, or equates these levels for global warming (temperature rise). I know greenhouse gases will cause warming, but warming may have happened anyway.

Re: Global warming
 

What's most worrying is many are using trendy opinion to conveniently let themselves off the hook. Meanwhile the global population ceaslessly runs out of control, we continue to burn ever increasing amounts of fossil fuels and the decimation of our forested areas proceeds. We're ****** :blink:

Re: Global warming
 

I've always wondered who gets to decide what the ideal average temperature for the planet should be and how they arrived at that conclusion. :blink:

Any IPCC representitives here, please let me know. :D

It's no secret the planet has been warmer in the past and flourished. Why is that a bad thing?

Re: Global warming
 

There is the "big unknown" factor. With an overpopulated and hotter planet the competition and demand for it's dwindling resources and limited land masses will increase. And so many knock on effects.

Halting population growth should be priority number one but strangely little attention is paid to that.

Re: Global warming
 

I agree entirely. There should be global population management program.

Re: Global warming
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Antarctica

Ice cover

Nearly all of Antarctica is covered by an ice sheet that is, on average, at least 1.6 kilometres thick. Antarctica contains 90% of the world's ice and more than 70% of its fresh water.

If all the land-ice covering Antarctica were to melt — around 30 million cubic kilometres of ice — the seas would rise by over 60 metres.

This is, however, very unlikely within the next few centuries. The Antarctic is so cold that even with increases of a few degrees, temperatures would generally remain below the melting point of ice. Warmer temperatures are expected to lead to more snow, which would increase the amount of ice in Antarctica, offsetting approximately one third of the expected sea level rise from thermal expansion of the oceans.

During a recent decade, East Antarctica thickened at an average rate of about 1.8 centimetres per year while West Antarctica showed an overall thinning of 0.9 centimetres per year (Davis et al., Science 2005)

Re: Global warming
 

This is a popular myth. The terms "climate change" and "global warming" were both being used as early as the 1970s. In 1975, America's National Academy of Sciences released a report entitled Understanding Climate Change: A Program for Action.

Can't help you there, but I can offer this:
(Source).

Has it? When was this? Global warming is a bad thing today because our planet is vastly more populated and highly dependent on stable weather conditions. Just look at the damage caused by El Niño every year:
(Source).

Re: Global warming
 

Given the recent Climategate revelations (not heard of it? that's because the msm wants you not to hear about it - try googling it) I would say that the contribution of man to any change in climate - and what change in climate would that be???? is zip, nada, nothing - except for those stations which are now situated next to air conditioning vents or in the middle of bloody great tarmac car parks.

The stuff coming out of CRU is dynamite - pointing to a scam of the highest order. "Scientists" massaging the figures left right and centre to get to the outcome they want, destroying original data so no one can pick them up for it, making sure that "peer reviewed" meant reviewed by their own little select peer group. I am sure that many suspected this but voices like Christopher Monckton, Bob Carter, Ian Plimer have been howling in the wilderness until now. Even the warmanista George Moonbat (Monbiot) is accepting that these revelations are monster!

I am right behind the NO! to ETS group - taxing emissions which will have absolutely no impact on the temperature in the world at all.

OTOH, I do agree that the climate is changing - always has and always will. Australia always has been a land of droughts floods and fires and what we need to be doing, given the untenable population that we have already, is to be working on ways to ameliorate that situation the best way we can - not building more bloody school halls and letting dodgy brothers get rich off the tax payer dollar by installing batts in homes where people were too lazy to pay for their own.

Off hobby horse now - this Climategate thing has made me so damned angry!

Edited to say - Vash's diagram, courtesy of the New Scientist is one promulgated by the IPCC based on information gained from the CRU - where you "ignore the decline", use "tricks" to disappear data you dont want etc. What relationship it has to reality is dubious to say the least.

Re: Global warming
 

I agree.

The human race faces the equivalent of Pascal's wager. If you do not believe in global warming and do nothing then we have everything to loose. If you do believe in global warming and do something, we have everything to gain. It therefore makes logical sense to accept it even though the proof may not be to your liking.

Just because you deny something does not make it the case. The latest Climategate and media frenzy is a side show. If I were a skeptic, and I am, I might even suggest that there are a lot of interested parties in the science of it all and some very large financial stakes in discrediting the work done.

There are huge issues besides CO2 which must be addressed and are all interlinked. The world cannot carry on in the manner that we have been post industrialisation. We consume more grain than we use, we are at the end of peak oil, the next decade will see migration in massive numbers. The polar caps are disappearing, sea levels rising. Change is upon us whether we like it or not. As others have said population control should be the worlds priority. But thats not a nice thing for politicians to say.

Is CO2 emmissions the cause of global warming ? Who knows. But can anyone seriously suggest that they think that pumping the crap we do into the air as a global population is a good thing ? Reduce them anyway - we have nothing to loose.

I happen to think the Australian ETS is rubbish of the highest order. I also believe that industry has more influence in politics than many people would care to think is the case. We should instead have turned to nuclear power as a nation. The technology evolving in this field makes it just too attractive with the latest revolutionary Chinese nuclear designs making it safe.

But then, I'm not the Prime Minster having to go to Copenhagen as the star of the Commonwealth Unity on climate change and if I had not done something also been rather discredited as a hypocrite being one of the worst polluting nations and a non Koyoto signatory. The ETS passing is merely a ill thought out "look we did something" badge.

Re: Global warming
 

It was higher during the Jurassic. I would guess that there have been other times as well.

Re: Global warming
 

Wow, the level of ignorance shown in these poll results is incredible - looks like the deniers have done a good job in confusing people.

Just to set a few records straight:

• The level of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen dramatically since the industrial revolution and the beginning of the mass exploitation of fossil fuels. That's a fact - million years of ancient CO2 that was locked up, then dumped into our atmosphere over a century.
• CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so its totally wrong to suggest that the effect of that increase on global temperatures will be negligible. The straight 1+1=2 is a significant increase in temps, and fast. If you want to suggest otherwise, you need to provide the evidence why it won't have a major effect. All the evidence says CO2 and temp are correlated, every feedback mechanism people can think of has been included in the models - the picture painted is not pretty.
  
  The jury came back on this decades back. You want to overturn the verdict, you need some serious evidence and some good theories. They are missing from the denier case.
• Increases in temp this large and this fast are unprecedented and mean that natural systems won't have time to adapt. Some will die off, some will live (probably the weeds). You can add to that land use changes not being simple or quick.
• Climate change is a better term than global warming because of the chance that the thermohaline circulation turns off. It has before, in related circumstances, and it puts Europe in an ice age.
• Lots of other nasties fall out as well; acidification of the oceans from CO2 dissolving (measured today), methane hydrate release (seen today) increasing the greenhouse effect dramatically, likewise with permafrost melting (seen), glaciers sliding into the sea, water shortages in the subcontinent, etc. etc.
• The CRU stolen emails were a storm in a teacut. They don't show the data being fixed - they do show climate scientist wanting to strangle the deniers (and I can understand that). They have been widely misrepresented by deniers and shoddy journalists.
• Oh, and with the positive feedback instances known, its probably worse than the IPCC is saying. They're conservative.

Bringing this all back to the supposed point of the forum, Australia. Its already hitting rainfall in Aus (that's measured) and the models show increased temps up to 4C, easy. 2050 type timescales that will reduce the carrying capacity of the country significantly. Why am I still interested in being there? Because by that time I'll be dead and there are nearer term threats that make Aus better positioned.

None of which changes the longer term facts of the matter.

Re: Global warming
 

I agree that we have nothing to lose by reducing carbon emissions. We should do this anyway whether man-mad climate change is real or not.

However I'm not convinced by the nuclear argument. I don't think it reduces carbon emissions by as much as the proponents suggests and it produces yet more dangerous waste. I think people concentrate only on the theoretical process that goes on in the reactor and not the whole process. I did read a report the other day suggesting that nuclear power in the UK only reduced emissions by 4%. Now I can't vouch for these findings but the biggest carbon savings in the UK have come from the switch from coal to gas fired power stations. Prior to the deregulation of the power generation industry in the UK nuclear power accounted for about 25% of the UK's electricity generation but the country's carbon output per capita was greater than Australia's

As someone once said. 30 years of power and 100 years of clean up. How does that make economical sense?

Re: Global warming
 

I think you've equated scepticism that climate change is man-made with denying that climate change is happening. Your first point is to do with man-made change and the rest is to do with climate change in general whether it is man-made or not. Proving that climate change is happening is not the same as proving it is man-made.