Why Climate Change Won't Matter in 20 Years

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

I've asked this before, and I'll ask again. Why are those living in the coldest parts of the world so aghast at the concept of global warming??

It's only the snow skiers and I say "screw them"

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by jackdale

It must be coincidence that the Clean Air Acts were followed accelerated warming. It must also be coincidence that all major volcanic eruptions result in cooling.

Follow you own advice and read the link. It's all explained in terms even a dumb-ox like me can understand.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Maybe the answer to watch the permafrost melt releasing methane (another GHG), watch the sea level rise displacing coastal countries and cities, see the impact of ocean acidification of our sea-based food stocks, watch ocean heat content increase and the poleward shift of sea life, watch the increased predation of food crops, Watch as food crop nutrition declines, watch changing weather patterns, watch glaciers retreat.

We have not had the conditions for 3-5 millions, let's just sit back and watch. Folks like a good train wreck.

How about watching for (and accurately citing to) a scientific consensus for all of these terrible events occurring?

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

It's only the snow skiers and I say "screw them"

Now there's an interesting task for our alarmist friends. How many ski resorts have shut down due to climate change (as opposed to a poor season or two) in the last 50 years?

[Exile]

Originally Posted by jackdale

He had an honours degree in physics before he was a cartoonist.

Freeman Dyson earned a degree in physics too, and also plenty of honors. I know, that's different. Dyson happens not to agree with the entire CC agenda.

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by Exile

Freeman Dyson earned a degree in physics too, and also plenty of honors. I know, that's different. Dyson happens not to agree with the entire CC agenda.

I was waiting for Jackdale to bite before delivering the killer blow on this one, but what the heck.

Straight from the horse's keyboard...

About Skeptical Science

About Skeptical Science

This site was created by John Cook. I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist and web programmer by trade. I did a Physics degree at the University of Queensland and while I achieved First Class Honours and could've continued onto a PhD, I instead quit academia and became a professional scrawler. Too much doodling in lectures, I think. Nevertheless, I've pursued a keen interest in science and if anything, found my curiosity about how the world works increased once I wasn't forced to study for impending exams.
My interest in global warming began when I drew a cartoon spoof of the TV show 24 that wondered what Jack Bauer would do if Al Gore was President and global warming was the "threat du jour". I watched An Inconvenient Truth for research which I found thought provoking although I didn't know what to make of all the science.
I then got into some discussions with a family member and diehard skeptic who handed me a speech by Senator Inhofe. It was fairly light on actual science but some research revealed the arguments were misleading and flawed which surprised me - I thought such a prominent spokesman for global warming skeptism would've done his homework more thoroughly.
Since then, I've scoured the original peer reviewed studies in an attempt to get past the political agendas and cherry picking. When I think I've worked out the truth of a particular issue, I find websites and blogs that hold the opposite view and present my case. This kind of vigorous discussion is an ideal way to highlight any flaws in my logic and gaps in my research. I've come to the conclusion that global warming is being driven by manmade CO2 emissions but I hope to be wrong and research each skeptic argument, in a strange way hoping to be convinced by it. I'm still yet to meet a skeptic argument that is even vaguely convincing.
I've noticed two patterns in global warming skepticism. Firstly, many reasons for disbelieving in anthroporphic global warming (AGW) seems to be political rather than scientific. Eg - it's all a liberal plot to spread socialism and destroy capitalism (or sometimes just plain dislike for Al Gore). As one person put it, "the cheerleaders for doing something about global warming seem to be largely the cheerleaders for many causes of which I disapprove".
But beneath the politics is a more elemental instinct - an aversion to alarmism. We've been burnt before. The media predicted an ice age in the 70's which never eventuated. Y2K was going to destroy society - it was barely a hiccup. And I won't deny there are alarmists in the global warming camp. Urgent cries that the ice sheets are on the verge of sliding into the sea. Hysteric predictions that Manhattan will soon be underwater. Or emotional pleas to save those cute little polar bears. Sadly, alarmists seem to be the loudest voices in the global warming debate. But that doesn't change the science underneath.
So I avoid the distractions of political agendas, ad hominem arguments and hyperbole about "the new religion". Instead, I concentrate on the science. And I noticed when the discussion did get to science, the same flawed skeptic arguments kept popping up and got passed around the blogosphere, Chinese whispers style. This website is an attempt to examine all the scientific arguments that reject AGW.

© John Cook 2007

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Maybe the answer to watch the permafrost melt releasing methane (another GHG), watch the sea level rise displacing coastal countries and cities, see the impact of ocean acidification of our sea-based food stocks, watch ocean heat content increase and the poleward shift of sea life, watch the increased predation of food crops, Watch as food crop nutrition declines, watch changing weather patterns, watch glaciers retreat.

We have not had the conditions for 3-5 millions, let's just sit back and watch. Folks like a good train wreck.

You worry way too much about nothing.

If and when the ocean rises up a measly three feet or so over the next two hundred years... Who cares? Besides the GW Zealots.

In The Channel Islands, the twice daily tide goes up and down thirty feet, and what do the locals think of rising and lowering of the ocean levels? It's no big deal... They've adapted.

[fryewe]

Now, you know there’s some communities I can’t talk to because, you know, I’m a liberal, Jewish atheist from New York City, right? So if I go to Texas and try and tell people about climate change, I’m totally the wrong messenger, right? Because we don’t have any shared values quite frankly. But, some people do, right? So, Katherine Hayhoe, right? So, you know she married an evangelical pastor, and I don’t know if you saw ‘Years of Living Dangerously’? She’s featured on one segment there talking to townsfolk in Plano, Texas, and she’s one of them. She’s from Canada, so she’s not quite one of them, but she’s almost one of them. So, she can talk with them in ways that don’t threaten their kind of who they see themselves as. A lot of times we think, ‘oh, more science, more science’, and really we want to allow less science and more cultural understanding, and that might take us a lot further.”

Those Texans are all bitter clingers...they cling to their religion and thermometers, I guess...

Watch: NASA’s chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt claims Texans won’t listen to ‘liberal, Jewish atheist from NYC’ about ‘global warming’ | Climate Depot

[fryewe]

Originally Posted by fryewe

Those Texans are all bitter clingers...they cling to their religion and thermometers, I guess...

...in Europe, however, where the churches, once so important, are now empty. For the champions of the secularization thesis, such a development is nothing to complain about: Empty churches are a sign of reason’s progress. Mr. Stark offers some amusing evidence to the contrary. Drawing on the Gallup poll, he notes that Europeans hold all sorts of supernatural beliefs. In Austria, 28% of respondents say they believe in fortune tellers; 32% believe in astrology; and 33% believe in lucky charms. “More than 20 percent of Swedes believe in reincarnation,” Mr. Stark writes; “half believe in mental telepathy.” More than half of Icelanders believe in huldufolk, hidden people like elves and trolls. It seems as if the former colonial outposts for European missionaries are now becoming more religious, while Europe itself is becoming interested in primitive folk beliefs...

Perhaps it's these "thinkers" that believe help form the consensus that radical action is needed due to AGW.

The God Profusion - WSJ

[fryewe]

It's already too late. Although we were promised that "this is the day the oceans began to recede"...

The expiration date has come and gone on NASA’s James Hanson’s claim in January of 2009 that Obama only had four years to save the earth.


President Obama 'has four years to save Earth' | Environment | The Guardian

[fryewe]

Is this really where we want the Earth Firsters to take us?

The War on Fun: Canadian Edition | Acculturated

[SimonV]

Fires in 2003 in Australia released some 200 megatons of CO2, about four times the annual absorption rate, Greenpeace's Winn said yesterday. Earlier this year, fires ravaged southeastern parts of the country after temperatures soared above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

That's the same amount of carbon that is released by our coal fired power plants.

Sent from my GT-N7105T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[XXXIII]

Warmist, please answer me this...
So, We went from 300 ppm to 400 ppm co2 in the atmosphere.
That's a delta of 100ppm, which is the equivalent of 1/100 of 1%, and because of this the climate goes to hell???
This just seems like a negligible change

[Exile]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Hey....what was I saying....

Google Chairman Thinks AI Can Help Solve World's ‘Hard Problems’ - Bloomberg Business

Maybe AI can help the US president & sec'y of state figure out exactly what the scientific consensus on GW actually is. But then how would John Cook make a living without all those Paypal donations?

[Exile]

Originally Posted by fryewe

The objective is not to change minds, but to learn and perhaps point out things others don't know.

I've learned a lot from this thread, from both sides. Much obliged, especially from those with science-related backgrounds.