Climate Change Pays a Visit to the Caribbean and Coral Reefs Suffer? Do you believe t

[Mantra]

In most parts of the world, people are absolutely dumbfounded some countries still see this as a debate.

The evidence for man made climate change is overwhelming, rigorous, and has consensus - rhetoric from vested corporate interests and their hired spin doctors notwithstanding.

The problem is that climate change deniers are not as harmless as flat earthers, or people who think the moon landing was faked by Kubrick, or those who believe Obama is made entirely from small Martian sex robots, or whatever. Kooks can be adorable. Kooks who are actively hindering efforts to bring us back from ecological tipping points are not merely ignorant, but dangerous.

Yes, the earth is more robust than many realise. It can self-repair after major extinction events like meteor strikes and ice ages and so on. These adjustments often take a little more time than our species has - millions or tens of millions of years.

EDIT: you guys just put curiosity on the surface of mars. It was a triumph of science and reason. It was incredibly inspirational and no other nation in the world could have done it. And yet this nonsense continues.

---------- Post Merged at 11:16 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:46 PM ----------

Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure…

The LIE that : 97% of scientist agree that global warming is occurring and it is caused by humans.

or (how 79 scientist became 5.8 million)

Frequently in stories and congressional testimony we hear that 97% of the world’s scientists agreed that man is the driver of the climate and that the warming in unequivocal.

Apparently, the poll being referenced was one published in EOS on January 20, 2009. EOS is published by the American Geophysical Union and bills itself as: “The premier international newspaper of the Earth and space sciences, EOS seeks to forge strong interdisciplinary ties among geophysicists and place the important contributions of geophysics in the context of the social and policy-making arenas”.

The researchers sent an online survey to 10,257 Earth scientists working for universities and government research agencies, and generated responses from 3,146 people to the following questions.

Q 1. :When compared with pre‐1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?”

Q 2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?”

Few who have studied climate change would object to the first. Certainly the earth is warmer than during the Little ice Age.

Most skeptics would object or disagree on the second. If one includes urbanization and land use changes such as deforestation and irrigation, certainly, man affects local even regional climate often in a significant way.

The researchers then boiled down the numbers to those who self identified themselves as those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total).

Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered ‘risen’ to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered ‘yes’ to question 2.

Thus, the touted 97% figure is based on the responses of 0.75% of those polled, just 77 to 79 scientists, certainly a minute fraction of 5.8 million scientists (AAAS). And the questions asked are ones even the most ardent skeptics may have answered yes.

Huh, go figure...

If you are going to copy and paste from conservative bloggers, you should at least cite your sources. The article by Joe D'Aleo that you are quoting from here is itself a product of very poor research, is riddled with errors of fact and has been resoundingly discredited. I actually agree with you and him that the EOS poll was poorly conducted and that the 97% claim based on that is misleading. So where does that leave us? Read what you just pasted. A more accurate statement would be that 97% of the climate change experts who responded to the poll believed that global warming has human causes, and that geologists and so on, who are not experts, might think differently. So lets concede that point to D'Aleo. It is mainly the experts in the field who overwhelmingly agree (79 is a decent enough sample size for this niche academic subset). But then let us acknowledge that D'Aleo's article is likewise shamelessly misleading, and comes from a man with an agenda. D'Aleo believes:

""Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception."


In other words, a mighty sky wizard made this all just perfectly for us, and as such it's perfectly designed so we can't screw it up, no matter what we do. Neato! How cool is that! Thanks, silent, invisible, oddly unverifiable sky wizard!

So lets unentangle from religious and political and corporate interests and ignore the spin (hint: conservative or liberal bloggers have respective axes to grind) and let's try to keep the discussion evidence based. When this debate is kept to the facts, it is all much clearer. Only the lunatic margins still have a problem with the idea that the massive physical changes we have made on the planet over the last hundred or two years are having widespread consequences. We are talking a delicate, interconnected, interdependent closed system. Spaceship earth, as Carl Sagan would have it. When you start tinkering with inconceivably complex machines like the one we live in, unintended consequences not only frequently arise, they can be expected to.

 

[Mike]

Bank can't require anything if you don't owe them anything. But I digress.

Point is, even if you think that climate change is not affected by man, don't you think that hedging your bets and taking care of the environment for future generations is a generally good idea. You know a bit like the fact that you think nothing is going to happen to your house but you still insure it just to be on the safe side.

We are up to 108 billion and climbing in tax payer dollars being spent directly funding on the subject and another 1-2 trillion dollars indirectly affected by something that more and more scientists are turning against. With another 1-2 trillion dollars being effected by regulations. So no I don't agree to just blindly keep doing this just to be on the safe side. We've long past the stage in the United States where our economy can absorb all this unnecessary burden.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

... our economy ain't gonna be worth squat when the oceans can no longer sustain us ...



... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[electrix]

What are Sen. Inhofe's scientific qualifications?

The book is about the legislative battles being fought and the deceit and trickery used by some in order to get their way put into law.

 

[Qnape]

""Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception."

I knew the outrageous concept of intelligent design would rear its faith-based head in this discussion. Those who dispute any possibility of human influenced climate change, in my mind, are inextricably linked with those who deny the concept of evolution, and suggest that earth is 6000 years old (or whatever silly age they quote from the bible) and humans walked with the dinosaurs.

As has been suggested, it is essentially impossible to reason with those expounding such beliefs, as reason, logic, and the rational and scientific method of collecting and examining evidence, then using such evidence to suggest and support hypotheses does not impress them.

It seems to me that there was a time in the USA when those holding such beliefs were widely considered to be "on the fringes" (to be kind). Alas, no more.

While not personally professionally trained in science, I essentially grew up in a (rather well-known) Natural History museum. I recall assisting in the editing of a book back in the 70's aimed at youth to explain and debunk what was then called Creationism and is now rather diabolically re-named intelligent design (true believers will, of course dispute that they are the same). I remember wondering how anyone could fall for such arguments in the face of overwhelming evidence - but have since come to realize that it is very easy to simply ignore mountains of evidence and data when taking such positions.

As DandyDon suggested and boulderjohn eloquently explained, these discussions are quite useless at least in that they will not convince those who "will not see".

 

[boulderjohn]

I knew the outrageous concept of intelligent design would rear its faith-based head in this discussion. Those who dispute any possibility of human influenced climate change, in my mind, are inextricably linked with those who deny the concept of evolution, and suggest that earth is 6000 years old (or whatever silly age they quote from the bible) and humans walked with the dinosaurs.

As has been suggested, it is essentially impossible to reason with those expounding such beliefs, as reason, logic, and the rational and scientific method of collecting and examining evidence, then using such evidence to suggest and support hypotheses does not impress them.

What is really interesting to me is that most of the well known denominations of the world's religions, including Christianity, do not in fact reject evolution. See this web site for a summary. Despite the fact that Christianity's main leaders feel that evolution is compatible with their faith, the majority of American Christians do not feel that way. How can this be? The majority reject evolution and embrace a literal account from Genesis (about which they actually know very little). I really don't understand it, but it seems to me that we are surrounded today by churches that do not bear the names of the major faiths. They all seem to have names that do not indicate any particular denomination. Who, then, is leading these churches? What are their theological backgrounds and qualifications?

 

[electrix]

Ok lets say you believe that the humans on earth are causing the planet to warm to a critical level, what are you doing about it? Have you crushed your car, have you turned off your heating and air conditioning and hot water heater do you just set in the dark when the sun goes down? If not how come? What about the refrigerator the freezer? Maybe you are just calling people names that have not bought into the latest doomsday hook line and sinker like you have. The same expert testified before congress in the 70's that an ice age was coming that testified later before congress that it was warming not cooling, I guess he was right unless it stays the same. If tomorrow all of us agree in the USA to stop contributing to the problem it will not matter overall because China and India are going to keep on going, together they outnumber us more than 6 to 1 I think. Consensus is not science it is just agreement and if they are trying to make money off of it then it is possibly tainted.
Maybe diving is causing global warming all the divers and bubbles in the ocean have upset the balance, creating too much water vapor in the atmosphere, is it just coincidence?

 

[DandyDon]

I think that Nigeria is the top producer of greenhouse gases.

 

[Mike]

According to Al Gore it's Nigerian cows farting.

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation"

A cow on average release between 70 and 120 kg of Methane per year. Methane is a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide (CO2). But the negative effect on the climate of Methane is 23 times higher than the effect of CO2. Therefore the release of about 100 kg Methane per year for each cow is equivalent to about 2'300 kg CO2 per year.

Let's compare this value of 2'300 kg CO2: The same amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) is generated by burning 1'000 liters of petrol. With a car using 8 liters of petrol per 100 km, you could drive 12'500 km per year (7'800 miles per year).

World-wide, there are about 1.5 billion cows and bulls. All ruminants (animals which regurgitates food and re-chews it) on the world emit about two billion metric tons of CO2-equivalents per year.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) agriculture is responsible for 18% of the total release of greenhouse gases world-wide (this is more than the whole transportation sector). Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO's Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: "Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."

God damn cows! We should eat them all for ruining the planet!

 

[electrix]

According to this chart I am looking at if you don't count water vapor, which is the biggest greenhouse gas, all other gases in the atmosphere ( at sea level ) other than nitrogen and oxygen are less than, 1% total ( we already knew that didn't we ) Argon is more than all the other gases combined at about .934%, CO2 is .0314% ( don't plants and trees need CO2 ) and methane is .0002% Most people that are not divers probably are clueless as to how much oxygen and nitrogen are in the air do you think that they would feel like you were pulling their leg if you told them that CO2 was only 3/100 of 1% ? I don't know about you but I am beginning to feel a little tug on my leg. I think I will go ahead and live in the present with cars and air conditioning instead of like it was in 1950. I have lived most of my life in Texas I never spent one day in an air conditioned school I don't think we even had a window unit AC at home till I was at least 10 years old.
It seems to me the ones pushing the panic button the hardest ( Al Gore ) are the ones that have figured out how to make money off it ( trading carbon credits ).
So for now I think the ocean is getting warmer because too many divers are peeing in it.