Mass Plankton Die-Off

[bobsadler]

consensus is for diplomats. what it has to do with science i cannot imagine.

as bertrand russel opined "the fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”

or, as the duc de la rochefoucauld (french writer and moralist) observed, “there goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts”

[Nauticatarcher]

Originally Posted by LuvToSail

With all due respect I would say it is a bigger joke to willfully deny a consensus that the near-entirety of the scientific community has cited as one of the gravest threats to the environment on our earth. What is the basis of your view point?

I think the consensus is getting a bit shaky
Have a look at Global Warming Petition Project
"31,487 American scientists have signed this petition,
including 9,029 with PhDs"
"
Purpose of Petition
The purpose of the Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.
Publicists at the United Nations, Mr. Al Gore, and their supporters frequently claim that only a few “skeptics” remain – skeptics who are still unconvinced about the existence of a catastrophic human-caused global warming emergency.
It is evident that 31,487 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,029 PhDs, are not "a few." Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,487 American scientists are not “skeptics.”
These scientists are instead convinced that the human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity and that government action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth."

[David_Old_Jersey]

The only response to the claim of 97% of all Scientists like Climate Change best is............

........name them. all.

and the 3%.

would have thought quite an easy Climate Change "fact" to 100% prove.

[mintyspilot]

Originally Posted by bobsadler

consensus is for diplomats. what it has to do with science i cannot imagine.

I agree. I always remember a doctor called Barry Marshall who said that stomach ulcers were treatable with $25 of out-of-patent antibiotics and some bismuth salts. At the time, the stomach ulcer industry was a multi-billion dollar concern were you (the patient) had to purchase $200 of drugs every month just to have a liveable life. Surgeons made their living cutting chunck out of your stomach.

Billions were at stake, careers could be ruined and anyway - the CONSENSUS was that stomach ulcers were caused by excess acid so drugs or surgery was the only answer.

All this was threatened by one "sceptic" who turned out to be right and Marshall was no exception either, the history of science is littered with such examples and the biggest is the Flat Earth theory. Everyone agreed on that for THOUSANDS of years, there was no lack of consensus.

There have lots of other consensus examples some of them utterly repugnant. Consensus doesn't mean a thing.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

This is not quite so.

I have spent some time in Sweden, which is rich and where people do care.

I spent some time in Brazil and Panama, which can be closer to the 5 USD daily and they were the dirtiest places.

I do not think it is true that the rich do not care.

BTW I am not so far from the 80% group, in fact at times I might be IN the group, and I do care.

Anyway, my uneducated guess is that the rich seem to care more than the poor. I think it is related to education.

barnie

you are, of course, right. But large scale long term I think blind money dictates the course society takes, mere individual humans have very little control.
Ironically, on a day to day basis the poorer countries seem to recycle much more than the rich west, most things apart from plastics. The highways in Brasil have stretches where everyone throws their empty cans out the window for kids to collect and get a few pennies from the recycling place. In India nothing, apart from plastic, seems to get wasted.

But ultimately I see no way out. If you were an intergalactical species development consultant, the human species would be seen to be in very deep trouble on the current path of development. Massive reliance on power produced by burning unsustainable hydrcarbons, exponential population growth, spiralling extinctions of other species, the list goes on. Looks like there is no one at the helm.

But it's still a beautiful autumn day and I think i'll go for a beer and watch the thames flow by. Beauty still exists. All things come and go, why should we be any different.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by roverhi

... The 3rd world is mainly worried about the next meal and will cut down every tree in their realm if it's helps to feed them. Compare Haiti with and the Dominican Republic if you want to see a prime example of how much better even a small step up on the economic totem pole is for the environment...

I suspect you misunderstand the causes of Haiti’s impoverishment.
Under French rule in the 1700s, Haiti was the wealthiest colony in the New World, and represented more than a quarter of France's economy.
After a Haitian slave revolt defeated the French army in 1801, the newly independent nation became the first country in the New World to abolish slavery. This long revolution destroyed a lot of the country.
The new nation of Haiti was then required to pay a large indemnity to France (150 million Francs), or else many countries (including the USA) refused to acknowledge Haiti, for fear that it would encourage an American slave revolt. This reduced a wealthy nation to poverty.
More recently, both Haiti and the Dominican Republic were occupied by the United States, but Haiti was occupied for much longer. By the time the U.S. pulled out in 1934, Haiti's own institutions had atrophied.

[osirissail]

Selective history has a long record of distorting what really happened. And in the case of Haiti and Hispaniola I cannot let this go by as I have spent considerable time in the D.R. and admire what the people have done there to preserve their environment and culture. Which is totally opposite of what Haiti has done over its history. The Caribbean in general was heavily and even brutally exploited by the European powers ever since Columbus wandered in the area looking for India. From Wikipedia and dozens of other sources where you can read the full story, here are some historically important events in the 19th and 20th century that led to today's destroyed environment and social systems in Haiti.

"After a dozen years of discontent and failed independence plots by various groups, Santo Domingo's former Lieutenant-Governor (top administrator), José Núñez de Cáceres, declared the colony's independence, on November 30, 1821. He requested the new state's admission to Simón Bolívar's republic of Gran Colombia, but Haitian forces, led by Jean-Pierre Boyer, invaded just nine weeks later, in February 1822.[31]

As Toussaint Louverture had done two decades earlier, the Haitians abolished slavery. But they also nationalized most private property, including all the property of landowners who had left in the wake of the invasion; much Church property; as well as all property belonging to the former rulers, the Spanish Crown. Boyer also placed more emphasis on cash crops grown on large plantations, reformed the tax system, and allowed foreign trade. But the new system was widely opposed by Dominican farmers, although it produced a boom in sugar and coffee production. All levels of education collapsed; the university was shut down, as it was starved both of resources and students, since young Dominican men from 16 to 25-years-old were drafted into the Haitian army.
. . .
In 1838 Juan Pablo Duarte founded a secret society called La Trinitaria, which sought the complete independence of Santo Domingo without any foreign intervention.[33]147–149 Ramón Matías Mella and Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, despite not being among the founding members of La Trinitaria, were decisive in the fight for independence. Duarte and they are the three Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic. On February 27, 1844, the Trinitarios (the members of La Trinitaria), declared the independence from Haiti.
. . .
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt sought to prevent European intervention, largely to protect the routes to the future Panama Canal, as the canal was already under construction. He made a small military intervention to ward off the European powers, proclaimed his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, and in 1905 obtained Dominican agreement for U.S. administration of Dominican customs, then the chief source of income for the Dominican government.
. . .
Opposition to the occupation continued, however, and after World War I it increased in the U.S. as well. There, President Warren G. Harding (1921–23), Wilson's successor, worked to end the occupation, as he had promised to do during his campaign. U.S. government ended in October 1922, and elections were held in March 1924."
. . .
- - Remember that history is written from many different perspectives depending upon the "mindset" and prejudices of the historian. So you end up with sometimes wildly different versions of the same events. The history of the Caribbean and Haiti and the D.R. is a long litany of exploitations by European powers. Some islands survived and made out fairly well and others did not.

During the 19th Century, Haiti ruled the D.R. from 1822 to 1844 and it was during this time, in 1838, that the French demanded the 150m Francs from Haiti in exchange for granting the country international recognition. Haiti was able to make payments on the amount by seriously exploiting the eastern sections of the island. This assisted Gen. Duarte in his efforts to gain independence from Haitian rule in 1844. Since then the various rulers of Haiti stripped their side of the island and also provided bulk labor to the D.R. for the historically normal process of what "war lord/dictator" types of governments have always done and do world-wide.
- - Haiti ended up with a brutal exploitive dictator Francois Duvalier (Papa Doc -- 1957-1971) and his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc -- 1971-1986).
- - Fortunately for the D.R. they got a brutal dictator, Rafael Trujillo Molina who suppressed domestic opposition, and he and his retinue gradually turned the country into a private fiefdom. Material improvements in roads, agriculture, sanitation, and education contributed to the prolongation of the regime and set the tone for the modern environmental awareness of the people of the D.R.
- - The difference between the two dictators was that Trujullo cherished and built up the D.R. economy and preserved its environment. Whereas Papa Doc exploited and subsequently destroyed the Haitian economy and environment.
- - Haiti has never been a nice place and they have been exploiting others and their own environment for most of their history. And what is there today is a direct result of this exploitation without responsibility.
- - In the sense of this thread Haiti is an excellent example of what happens with unreasonable exploitation of the environment and human resources. In general the world is not a "nice" place and whether you get a benevolent dictator or a exploitive dictator is the "luck of the draw." But it is the environment and the people that pay the price eventually.

[foggysail]

Originally Posted by roverhi

CO2 is .035% of the atmosphere. Humans maybe contribute 15% to the total annual release of CO2. Do the math, the amount of green house gases that that generates is so minuscule as to be non existant. Burning fossil fuels is such a small contribution that even a total cessation of burning fossil fuels would have virtually no effect on Warming. Declaring CO2 a pollutant, a gas that virtually every living thing relies on to live, is the biggest joke in the universe. The idea of Carbon offset is just another way for Wall Street to make money as they would be the ones to market the exchange.

AMEN!!!!

I have banged that drum now for years!!! The so called atmospheric heating has more to do with WATER VAPOR! CO2 can double but mean nothing while people scream the sky is falling! Maybe we should ban outdoor swimming pools! OH, but we do have oceans and large lakes.

For those worried about the third world, I recommend reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Her book written in the mid 50's is precocious in describing our government today.

Foggy

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by osirissail

Selective history has a long record of distorting what really happened...

Another (short) view of Haitian history:
➥ The fault line in Haiti runs straight to France | Ben Macintyre - Times Online

[dacust]

Here's the challenge: Do your own research. Decide for yourself how valid the Global Warming Petition Project is.

Start with the list of names in alphabetical order:

--> Global Warming Petition Project

Take them in order and start Googling. See how many have peer review work on global warming.

Now take a look at the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Working Group I Report "The Physical Science Basis"

The authors and reviewers are listed in this PDF:
--> http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-re...g1-annexes.pdf
The author names are on pages 15-28 of the PDF (printed page 955-968).
The reviewers names are on pages 29-39 of the PDF.

I estimate there are over 1000 names.

Take them in order and start Googling. See how many have peer review work on global warming.

Now, post back here the number of people you had to google on the petition to find a person with peer reviewed work in climate science. And the number of people you had to google in the IPCC report to find someone the least bit questionable.

Just for the heck of it, here are the results for the first 5 names that I found on another forum. NOTE: I have not verified all these myself. So you should do it yourself.

Petition:

1. Earl Aagaard. Field: Biology, interested explicitly in Intelligent Design. Relevant publications on climate change? None.
2. Charles W. Aami. Field: Unknown. I couldn’t find any person by that name in connection toany scientific field, let alone climate science. Relevant publications on climate change? None.
3. Roger L. Aamodt. Field: Oncology. Relevant publications on climate change? None.
4. Wilbur A. Aanes. Field: Veterinary surgery (specifically “large animal surgery"). Relevant publications on climate change? None (although he seems to be well-published on equine surgery, which I’m sure has some bearing on climate change).
5. M. Robert Aaron, DECEASED. Field: Telecommunications. Relevant publications on climate change? None.

IPCC report:

1. Krishna Achutarao. Research Scientist at the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Relevant publications: plenty.
2. Robert Adler. NASA Senior Scientist in the Laboratory for Atmospheres and is also currently serving as Project Scientist for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Relevant publications: plenty.
3. Lisa Alexander. Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. Relevant publications: plenty.
4. Hans Alexandersson. Climatologist at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. Relevant publications: plenty.
5. Richard Allan. Atmospheric scientist, Environmental Systems Science Centre, University of Reading. Relevant publications: plenty.

Here is another person's look into names on the petition. They started on the O page and only googled PHDs.

1. Richard D. O'Barr, Ph.D.: The only scientific reference to this name that I found was a Horticulture publication: Grauke, L. J. and Richard D. O'Barr. 1996. Initial survival of pecan grafts on seedling rootstocks of pecan, water hickory and their interspecific hybrid. HortTechnology 6:45-48.
2. Kelly H. Oliver, Ph.D.: I could not find a scientific reference to "Kelly H. Oliver," but there is a "Kelly Oliver" (unknown middle initial) who is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin who specialized in Feminism.
3. Edward A Oleata, Ph.D.: Apparently Dr. Oleata gave >$1000 to support the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. The only other hits were to track and field rankings.
4. Ordean S Oen, Ph.D.: Dr. Oen pioneered some work in solid state physics back in the 1950's. He is apparently retired from the Atomic Energy Commission at Oak Ridge. Tenn
5. Walter C. Ormsby, Ph.D.: I found no information on Dr. Ormsby in Google.
6. Marvin L. Oftedahl: Dr. Oftedahl worked for Monsanto Company, seemingly as an organic chemist. Here is a link to Dr. Oftedahl's Obituary. *He died in 2003 of renal failure* but must have come back from the dead to sign the petition. I can only conclude that he undertook this feat because he really feels strongly that we should not participate in Kyoto.

In the following two sections, i get my information from a teacher that got the petition request and decided to research on their own. In its entirety here --> TRN - Oct 1998 - The Wall Street Journal Blurs the Lines Between Science, Opinion, & Politics on Global Warming

What about the article that was included with the petition request?

Two authors, S. L. Balinus and W. Soon, are credible astrophysicists who study fluctuating stars, but their stated affiliation with the G. C. Marshall Institute hid their positions at Harvard University. Why? In my experience, faculty at prestigious academic institutions readily proclaim their institutional affiliation, adding more weight to their professional standing and any position they are championing. Certainly Stephen Jay Gould does not hide his Harvard professorship when being controversial. John Mack, the UFO abduction author, was immediately identified with Harvard, too. Neither feared any institutional reprisals for their intellectual excursions, even in the case of Mack, who was far afield of his area of expertise. So why would these two scientists be so reticent? Perhaps because this manuscript was not real science, and they knew it.

The Marshall Institute is a self-proclaimed independent scientific policy organization, but my class discovered that the Marshall Institute has many ties with the Global Climate Coalition, which represents the interests of auto, fossil fuel, and chemical companies on climatic issues. In this case "independent," which could be taken as meaning even-handed and fair, only means that the Institute is not publicly funded. It takes no great imagination to understand that the self-interests of many companies whose products emit greenhouse gases are best served by scuttling any binding agreement limiting emissions.

Now, you COULD also look into the background of OSIM itself.

The Robinsons, father and son, run the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, and they are self-proclaimed experts on alternative health care, home schooling, and environmental education. Neither has a record of scholarship in environmental science, although the senior Robinson was a protein chemist. No biologists, ecologists, or environmental scientists are on the OISM steering committee.

Even with this lengthy post, I have only scratched the surface. There are many, many points showing that the petition is at best, severely flawed.

It also makes one wonder, why didn't they make it a poll? Probably because a petition with 31,000 names says one thing where if the poll might showed 31,000-20,000 or 31,000-40,000 or who knows?

This page has links to several articles about different facets of the OISM Petition Project.
--> The OISM Petition Project

Remember, before believing something (and especially before posting it), PLEASE do your own research. First google to find confirmation. But you also have to google to try to prove it wrong. If you can't find information to prove it wrong, you can have a little better confidence in it.

-dan

[TaoJones]

It has become apparent that many participants in this thread have long-since lost sight of the OP's original point - phytoplankton are reportedly dieing-off at an alarming rate. Unless this thread somehow gets back on that topic, and soon, it will be closed; unless all of the political commentary is omitted from posts, it will be closed; unless posters conform to the Be Nice rule, it will be closed.

Thank you for your cooperation.

TaoJones

[dacust]

Originally Posted by roverhi

...

CO2 is .035% of the atmosphere. Humans maybe contribute 15% to the total annual release of CO2. Do the math, the amount of green house gases that that generates is so minuscule as to be non existant. Burning fossil fuels is such a small contribution that even a total cessation of burning fossil fuels would have virtually no effect on Warming. Declaring CO2 a pollutant, a gas that virtually every living thing relies on to live, is the biggest joke in the universe. The idea of Carbon offset is just another way for Wall Street to make money as they would be the ones to market the exchange.

Originally Posted by foggysail

AMEN!!!!

I have banged that drum now for years!!! The so called atmospheric heating has more to do with WATER VAPOR! CO2 can double but mean nothing while people scream the sky is falling! Maybe we should ban outdoor swimming pools! OH, but we do have oceans and large lakes.

...

Foggy

Interesting logic. So minuscule as to be non-existent? Explain that the the plant life that depends on it to survive.

Try reading this --> RealClimate: Calculating the greenhouse effect
and this --> Role of CO2 in trapping radiation - Joshua Halpern

The upshot is that water is stable in the atmosphere. If you get too much, it rains. Too little and it can absorb more. The temperature is what controls it. As the temperature rises, more can be absorbed.

C02 is actually estimated to provides 9-30% of the greenhouse effect.

The rise in C02 can increase the greenhouse effect, which can increase the temperature, which can increase the H20 absorption capabilities, which can change the greenhouse effect even more. This is one of the feedback effects the scientists talk about.

As to the carbon credits and Wall Street? Absolutely. Big business will try to figure out how to make money off of anything. And in the process, pervert it. That's why I said in an earlier post that we have to separate the science from the politics.


EDIT: TaoJones: Sorry, i worked on this post for a while and posted it without seeing your warning post. Please feel free to delete it.

-dan

[GordMay]

There is a very important distinction to be made, between water vapour's role in the Earth's Greenhouse effect and it's role in climate change.
If you were to read through the table of climate forcings in the IPCC report or at NASA's page about forcings in its GCM, you won't find water vapour there at all. This is not because climate scientists are trying to hide the role of water vapour, rather it is because H2O in the troposphere is a feedback effect*, it is not a forcing agent.
Simply put, any artificial perturbation in water vapour concentrations is too short lived to change the climate. Too much in the air will quickly rain out, not enough and the abundant ocean surface will provide the difference via evaporation.
But once the air is warmed by other means, H2O concentrations will rise and stay high, thus providing the feedback.

* Atmospheric water vapour creates a “'positive feedback loop”; making any temperature changes larger than they would be otherwise. The amount of water vapour in the atmosphere exists in direct relation to the temperature. If you increase the temperature, more water evaporates and becomes vapour, and vice versa. So when something else causes a temperature increase (such as extra CO2 from fossil fuels), more water evaporates. Then, since water vapour is a greenhouse gas, this additional water vapour causes the temperature to go up even further. This is a positive feedback.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

phytoplankton are reportedly dieing-off at an alarming rate. Unless this thread somehow gets back on that topic, and soon, it will be closed;

Please don't! why does a thread need to stay on topic? this one is interesting and not many people are throwing stones at each other.

[hummingway]

It's interesting to note that phytoplankton has a significant role to play in the formation of clouds. It also has a significant role in the balance between CO2 and O2. As is often said the oceans are the engines of our planets atmosphere and it appears that plankton is an essential part of that. What scientists are saying is that plankton levels are down 40% since the 50's. They are also saying that monitoring of plankton levels is a modern thing so they can't comment at this point whether this is a pattern the planet has seen before. So the sensible thing to do is monitor it very carefully and should the trend continue be prepared to act.

I've heard it said that marine disasters are seldom the result of one thing going wrong but usually result from a combination of things going wrong in the same time frame. It concerns me that the same is true about the environment that supports our future generations. Just where does the tipping point lie?