How to engage positively with global warming skeptics.
Imagine you’re at a cocktail party, and you’re introduced to a guy named Dirk. Dirk calls himself a libertarian. After a few minutes of chatting, Dirk starts to suspect that you might care about the fate of the Amazon. Tipsy and irate, he starts ranting about global warming, how much he hates environmentalists, and how Al Gore is a money-grubbing hack.
Then he turns to you, purple with rage, ready to crush his martini glass in his fist. “AND I SUPPOSE YOU BELIEVE THIS CRAP ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?” he seethes.
What do you say to such a hothead? He’s ambushed you with the topic, and now he’s screaming un-cited statistics into your face. The guy seems like an asshole—and because he keeps interrupting you, he’s clearly insulted by the very thought of counter-argument. So now what?
Here’s what I say: “Actually, I don’t think it matters whether global warming exists or not.”
Dirk calms down. Dirk takes a breath. Now he wants to talk. He pegged you as a blame-America-first liberal, and now you sound like you agree with him. His ears open, his blood pressure subsides.
Now he’s curious: Why doesn’t it matter?
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Dealing with Dirk
“Dirk” is inspired by an actual person, and this conversation basically happened. I’m glad I didn’t have a full-on fight with Dirk, because he turned out to be a decent guy: a sculptor, a great storyteller, and a volunteer for the post-Katrina relief effort. If I had fallen into the usual debate, Dirk and I would never talk again. But we have, and we agree on many different things.
But there are Dirks everywhere. I’ve met Dirk, or his wife, or his kids, at least 100 times. Dirk is a popular character in Western Pennsylvania. He’s intelligent, skilled, and a hard worker. He’s a responsible gun owner and loves quality beer. Dirk smokes marijuana by the brick and is totally in love with his wife (as he should be, because most people can’t stand him). When he’s not fuming over “dirty hippies,” Dirk can be downright cool.
The problem with Dirk is that he’s socially awkward and easily bruised. People have hurt him in the past. He’s very confident about his lifestyle—so confident, he sees no other reasonable way to live—and diversity gives him the creeps. He’s always being told how to live, what to wear, what rules to follow. Yet Dirk sees his tax-money squandered by people who seem less motivated. This is when the asshole comes out. What’s this bullshit about carbon footprints? Why should “we” bow to foreign interests? What’s this Kyoto Protocol crap, anyway?
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Newsflash: Most People Are Not Scientists
I’ve stopped arguing with Dirk about global warming for one difficult reason, a reason I am loath to admit: In truth, I can’t explain it. Sure, I accept global warming as an urgent theory, and the evidence for it seems overwhelming. But when I try to accept it as truth, I ask myself the following questions:
- What is ozone? How come the deteriorating ozone layer is responsible for trapped heat?
- Specifically, how does breaking apart a Styrofoam box affect global warming?
- Using graph paper, how would I draft a chart that demonstrates the effects of global warming? What measurements would I use? How does this “prove” that global warming exists?
- Indeed, why do I believe this data? Do I perform the research myself? Have I ever met a researcher in the field? Given my non-existent background in physics, couldn’t the Giant Spaghetti Monster be just as responsible for global warming, for all I know?
The problem is that most people can’t provide a detailed argument for (or against) global warming. The relationship between solar radiation and the atmosphere is a subject that only scientists fully appreciate. We get the basic idea, but that’s it. Most of us are too ill-equipped to argue either side. Meanwhile, global warming is a slow and invisible process. Cold weather in December doesn’t prove the Earth is healthy, nor does one Indian Summer prove environmental collapse. Even if average Americans were experts in meteorological trends, global warming is the stuff of science, and science only produces theories. Science is the humblest field there is, because scientists don’t believe in “truth.” Evolution is just a theory. Nuclear energy is just a theory. All reality, as we claim to perceive it, is just a theory.
If Dirk and I debate global warming, we’ll sound like idiots. I have a basic idea of how global warming is supposed to happen, and Dirk claims to know otherwise. But the physical properties of solar energy are far beyond our knowledge. We can’t summon the simplest facts. How does solar energy convert into heat? How quickly are ice caps melting, and how do we compare this to billions of years of temperature trends? Unless we carry around bundles of research abstracts, all our “data” are hopelessly simplistic. We’re debating research we’ve never actually read. We might as well argue about how to build the best submarine, because we know more hard facts about naval engineering than we do about climate change.
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Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute
“Global warming is all beside the point,” I say to Dirk. “The problem is pollution and waste. What kind of moron is pro-waste? That’s just bad business.”
I use this all the time, because the tactic works on people of all political stripes. My environmentalist friends usually admit that they take Global Warming on faith (as I do). And conservatives usually agree that less pollution is a good thing. Both Dirk and his hippie nemeses want the same thing: clean water, fresh air, responsible companies, independence from oil, and abundant life. Even guys who hate tree-huggers aren’t averse to trees.
Week after week, I meet a new Dirk and discuss the future of the planet. Once we put aside the ethereal topic of Global Warming, we agree on concrete solutions: don’t litter, stop poisoning water, clean up toxic dumps, and foster alternative energy. Sure, Dirk would rather rely on smart CEO’s than government watchdogs, but at least we’ve agreed on the same problem, and we would both like to see it fixed.
I basically believe in global warming—the way that agnostics basically believe in a higher power—but I’m being honest with Dirk: I don’t think global warming should be the Earth’s most pressing concern. Rising temperatures are catastrophic, but they’re not our core problem; our core problem is that more than seven billion people live here, and half of them are hungry or starving. The problem is that our resources are insanely mismanaged, or else simply wasted. The problem—if there even needs to be another problem—is that we are all competing for money, energy, and power, and when I make a dollar, you lose a dollar. When my company thrives, yours goes bankrupt. When my country wins the war, yours is bombed to shit. And at any moment, some crazy tyrant could just blow up the world with nuclear weapons, in a matter of hours, just for fun. That’s the core problem.
Dirk and I have this one belief in common: If global warming exists, we humans will gradually adjust our lifestyles. It’ll be awful and unhealthy, but the Earth can adapt. Yet, until the global population plateaus and declines, our carbon footprint is no worse than the nuclear waste, eradicated species, and decimated forests that are already trashing our planet.
I consider myself an environmentalist, no matter how much Dirk scoffs. But the movement has its problems. In decades past, environmentalists had clear, pragmatic problems: DDT caused birth defects, and run-off ruined water supplies. Dumping mercury in the ocean poisoned fish, and it also poisoned the people who eat fish. But most people don’t care. Unless the disaster hurts your health or your pocketbook, most people shrug, or even get hostile. The only reason the environmental movement is popular now is because gas hit $6 a gallon. Period.
You don’t win converts by shouting at naysayers. Environmentalists need to understand their antagonists and appeal to their interests. Libertarians might love solar energy because they would never have to pay an electric bill—they could literally live off the grid. Green technology promises R&D investments (and profits) that Neo-cons can only dream of. These people probably don’t care about Venice or New Orleans getting swallowed by the sea, but if we can just convince them that recycling will help “beat terrorism”—since it was recycling that enabled us to win World War II—they might change their tune.
The more we argue for global warming, the more conservatives will hate the idea.
We will stay polarized as the actual poles keep melting.
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Image by Cherrylynx/ flickr
About Robert Isenberg
You wouldn’t need to be any kind of scientist to argue with Dirk.
You need two things: One is a solid body of proof that the Earth is warming. Keep in mind that the Hockey Stick has been busted as BS, and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia has been busted for faking the data. CRU is one of the biggies for such info except now that they’ve been caught trying to “hide the decline”, they’re not. NASA/NOAA have been accused, likely true, of ignoring or deliberately using the urban heat island effect.
So you’ll have to find some other source of data that’s not so sketchy and can’t be dismissed as BS on account of obviously being BS. You don’t need to be a scientist to do this.
You also don’t need to be a scientist to find out how awful the Holocene Maximum was, ditto the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, and how great the Dark Ages Cold Period was and ditto the Little Ice Age. That’s pretty simple history. The difference in temps from those periods to today are also pretty available. Wiki, however, is not the place to go. They had a warming activist editing their piece and keeping out the contradictory evidence. You do what you have to do, I guess.
You might be able to convince Dirk that following Kyoto would be worth the billions and billions it would cost for a less-than-likely chance of holding the predicted increase in temps down by a fraction of a degree. Or maybe not.
However, the bestest way to do it is to get Dirk involved in green energy, such as Solyndra. He would reap millions in government subsidies before ditching all his debts in bankruptcy as long as he pretends to believe in AGW. Small price to pay to become independently wealthy.
And try to follow WUWT, a website on the subject. Dirk probably does, so you’ll need to know what’s going on.
I’m not sure why you think the CRU has been discredited or “busted for faking the data”. As I understand it, those allegations were investigated by the EPA, the NSF, the Department of Commerce and at least two UK-based committees independently and all of them concluded that CRU’s data was not faked. Many of the criticisms of the CRU were taken grossly out of context. The “hide the decline” comment, for example, did not refer directly to global temperatures, but instead to a problem measuring tree-rings.
The Earth is warming. Mean global land-ocean temperatures have risen about 0.8°C since the turn of the 20Th century when humans first began to reliably track this data. Denying this statistic has essentially the same effect as asserting the earth is flat: it changes nothing and you’re arguing against ALL the data.
I’d love it you expanded on your second point, unfortunately I can’t quite follow the argument.
“But the physical properties of solar energy are far beyond our knowledge. We can’t summon the simplest facts.”
This argument strongly implies that democracy cannot work and you need elites to govern. I fully agree with this but I am wondering whether the author does.
And of course there is always the problem of shitty elites. I guess the basic idea here is that your just supposed to trust the scientists. But eventually you will discover that you can’t trust them. They don’t have magic special powers. Then what? Uncertainty, doubt and fear I guess.
“Science is the humblest field there is, because scientists don’t believe in “truth.”
Its really funny how naive most of you liberals are about how science actually functions. How pure you think scientific motivations are.
Ok I wanna throw the implied question back to you.
How does science actually function?
“How does science actually function?”
The same as it did in grade school…you manipulate things until you get whatever you think the answer is supposed to be. You do this by throwing away data, using adhoc methods, falsifying results etc. Peer review functions as a censorship mechanism to filter out non-mainstream ideas. And who gets published, makes it to conferences and get grants is determined by a small group of fairly powerful, connected scientists. Certain ideas are verboten. You exaggerate real world application in order to get funding. Being sensationalist is a good thing. Oh and of course you get an army of grad students to publish crap for you because quantity of papers published is important. If your really powerful you also get to plagiarize lesser scientists with impunity.
Ok I’m totally with you when you say, “talk to people in the language they can understand”. There’s no need to beat people over the head with our rhetoric. After all, they don’t need to agree with us, they just need to do the things we want them to do. Their reasons for doing those things is basically irrelevant.
And yet, I’m going to criticize some of your rhetoric, because I think that I’m coming from mostly the same place and therefore discussing this proves worthwhile.
1. “I don’t think global warming is the earth’s most pressing concern”
I’d argue that global warming is the earth’s MOST pressing concern. It might not be our country’s most pressing concern, it might not even be humanity’s most pressing concern, but it is more likely than anything, barring a nuclear holocaust, to damage the ability of our planet to support human life both in the short and long term. And if the only thing more destructive is literally nuclear war, then I think it’s a rather pressing concern.
2. “Yet, until the global population plateaus and declines, our carbon footprint is no worse than the nuclear waste, eradicated species, and decimated forests that are already trashing our planet.”
Global warming contributes to like, two and a half of the things you mentioned after it! (I’m giving it a ½ for nuclear waste because I think the global warming scare pushes people into using nuclear power instead of trying sustainable methods). Our carbon footprint causes deforestation and extinction. We can’t solve those problems without addressing it.
3. “[O]ur core problem is that more than seven billion people live here, and half of them are hungry or starving. The problem is that our resources are insanely mismanaged, or else simply wasted. The problem—if there even needs to be another problem—is that we are all competing for money, energy, and power, and when I make a dollar, you lose a dollar. When my company thrives, yours goes bankrupt. When my country wins the war, yours is bombed to shit. And at any moment, some crazy tyrant could just blow up the world with nuclear weapons, in a matter of hours, just for fun. That’s the core problem.”
This statement confuses me. None of these things are core problems. Some of them (starvation) are symptoms of others. One of them (waste) approaches a core problem with the structure of western society. As for the competition thing, well that’s just a product of capitalism. I mean, obviously we’re all competing for money, energy, and power. We all want those things. Show me a country or person willing to forgo living with electricity for the next year. I don’t really think there are any.
What it seems to me you are expressing frustration with, and please correct me if I’m wrong, is the inherent competitive nature of our society. Instead of building one that encourages sustainable living, long term planning, and raising everyone to a similarly high standard of living, we’ve built one that encourages people to exploit each other to get ahead. As this society globalized, we found that the earth does produce a limited number of resources, and therefore life is a zero sum game.
4. “If global warming exists, we humans will gradually adjust our lifestyles. It’ll be awful and unhealthy, but the Earth can adapt.”
I find this attitude present in many people’s minds and I think it’s a dangerous one. I think, when the crisis comes to a head, it won’t be a matter of humans gradually adjusting to new way of life. It’ll be a lot of people dying terribly. The way that global warming kills is through natural disasters, by increasing their severity and frequency. So, for example, crops will fail in certain parts of the world for years on end. It won’t be “global warming” it’ll be “drought” and yet, millions will still starve. Global warming will manifest as extreme drought, or monsoons, or huge hurricanes, or earthquakes. And people will starve, or drown, or be crushed. And it will probably be poor people unable to buy what they need or leave where they are. And slowly, the parts of the world where humans can profitably live will shrink.
So humans will adapt. Of course we will. We’ll just build new cities in new places. And we will adjust. And that adjustment will be paved overwhelmingly with the blood of the poorest people on this planet.
If we care about those people, if we want to “end starvation” then we have no choice but to address global warming. If we don’t care, then we don’t’ need to address it or change the way we live. Simple.
Ok here ends my rant.
I like the overall message of this article. I think it’s important for any movement, especially one globally focused like the environmental movement, to avoid getting hung up on WHY people do things. We’re looking for change of action, not drastic change of attitude.
“If we care about those people, if we want to “end starvation” then we have no choice but to address global warming. If we don’t care, then we don’t’ need to address it or change the way we live. Simple”
Simple, alright. The last cold period, The Little Ice Age, and the one before that, the Dark Ages Cold Period, both resulted in failed crops, famine, starvation and disease.
Ah, but I think that has more to do with any change away from the status quo. It doesn’t really matter which direction the change occurs in.
For example, rising global temperatures have already caused profound droughts in areas of historically fertile farmland. Which results in failed crops, famine, starvation, and disease.
Any quick change at all isn’t good for humans.
Dan.
Does rising global temp cause droughts? What happened in the Thirties? One would think there would be more precip in warmer times, there being more energy to evaporate water from the oceans, and more energy in the winds to move it around. Billions of tons of water locked up in glaciers aren’t much use to farmers.
But, anyway, if you’re right, we’d have had droughts during the Medieval Warm Period and the Roman Warm Period and the Holocene Maximum and plenty of rain during the Little Ice Age and the Dark Ages Cold Period. Famines during the former and plenty during the later should be historically demonstrable.
“For example, rising global temperatures have already caused profound droughts in areas of historically fertile farmland.”
It is impossible to make this type of attribution with current GCMs. Another case of scientist outright lying about what their models can do.
It is impossible to make this type of attribution with current GCMs. Another case of scientist outright lying about what their models can do.
Actually – if you factor in Global Dimming as has been done on recent climate models, last 7 years, you get an historically valid sequence that shows why the Northern African Monsoons failed for ten years and lead to mass famine – Remember Live Aide 1985 – and why the Monsoons gradually returned afterwards.
You seem to want simplistic models to make sense of complex subjects, so – You have cars throwing out exhaust and particles – that causes weather shift – causes drought – causes famine. That’s sort of 1960 through to 1980.
At same time – people have been bitching about cars and pollution – catalytic converters get installed – particulates go down – weather shift stop and goes back wards – monsoon returns – no more famine. That’s sort of 1980 to today.
You want cause and effect to be because people see it and make it happen – but There is cause and effect that is invisible and only becomes clear as time passes and human knowledge grows – well Human Knowledge has been exploding in the last 7 years where rain fall and famines are concerned …. and hell they were even predicting some hot summers in the USA 2 years ago! Odd how Pollution cuts in California can affect rain fall in Connecticut!
Just let us all know when there is any unseasonal hot weather and rain fall drop off in the USA. I’ll send a note to a few climatologists and let them know … and you never know they may even be right!
This is all about style…no substance. When do we get the substance?
If data, evidence and determinations can be convincing, they are – “convincing” that is.
You ought to need to pull in old and provel trophies like Mercury and DDT. Even stupid doubters like me won’t fall for that weak switcheroo… Joe six-pack will though. Joe six-pack falls for the “depletion of the Rain Forest lies that claim an acre-rate that would have wiped it out in about a month according to Mrs St Pierre’s 5th Grade Class.
If you can’t sell an idea, theory or claim to a thinking person, then you need a better pitch, or you need more evidence. You’ll never, in a million years, get a thinking person to give up their power of dissernment and evaluation…logic…common sense.
I know academic firmly believe that their logic, data, determinations are beyond reproach of “those people out there,” but they are not. If you can’t sell it, I won’t buy it.
When i sold consortial research projects to A-level universities, the faculty did not buy superlatives and limp- wristed, non-related parallel truths and stories like Mercury and Swordfish food chains. Never! You either come into our department with solid sh*t, or leave.
Same standard dude! Same Same!
Rob,
Would you mind telling me what you found unconvincing in the studies you’ve read on climate change? I’d love to understand your general criticisms of the field, or the problems you found with current methodology, or specific problems with specific authors. Thanks!
Note: Many people read my replies as hostile and angry. They are usually correct. In this case, please do not read ONE modicum of anger or hostility in this reply. Its purely a statement of reason and position. Thanks
Dan,
First, I’m not a scientist, but I’m educated enough for scientific and basic discernment. In other words, examining the stats cited, methodology(ies), financial sponsorship source-trace, identifying agendae, etc.
Its really not about convincing ME though. I’m speaking more of the skeptics of the GW phenomena in general. In order for any idea/concept to be bought into by a thinking human, it must be effectively sold. Simply ramming something as serious as “mankind is altering the climate” down our throats will not work. But clearly, the GW people become very frustrated when we won’t swallow. We skeptics can understand THAT you believe GW concepts. We also suspect poli/social/financial agenda with many advocates of GW. MANY of the publicized advocates have emerged as “less than pure” in their neutral or non-prejudicial association with outcomes and determination.
As for the many studies pitched to the public; they are clearly designed and limited for public consumption. IOW, “Scientists in France have found Ice-Core evidence that the Earth is warming at a rate that will prove to be a serious matter within ten years.”
So I’ve got to question: 1) What core, and is the sample observation being interpreted properly? Is it a questionable conclusionary method? 2) Trend-analysis is based upon what? “Ten years?” Trending data requires a lot of heft and integrity for me or Wall Street to invest in anticipated change. Heck, Ted Danson was the talent in a public-panic film that claimed “We have ten years at beat people.” I believe that film was released18 years ago. 3) Even if the warming condition is a “given,” the trace-back to human life and our behavior is weak at best (at least in the pitch-reports we the people are given) and highly suspect via its geo-political foci.
For ME, it seems that GW only became an issue when an entire industry of financial-flow was designed and the data collection methods became available. There was an immediate jump to conclude that human existence is poisonous to the climate, or at least an agent of change. Geo-political efforts are obscenely skewed against the USA, and fully geared to ignoring China, Mexico, Brasil, Russia, etc.
When I hear and see CO2 being deliberately pitched as a climate poison, I just turn away. Game over!
The gen pub may buy anything (I mean OMG…Jersey Shore?), but anyone who paid attention in second grade science is not buying that clear power and cash-grab.
When the GW advocates and action crowd resort to using “cute, sad kid” commercials crying for the Polar Bears, you re-gain my attention. At that point, it comes across as Hitler-Youth propaganda methodology. Credibility (any that the GW people may have had with me and people like me) is fully vanished.
So Dirk and I will never be able to sit with a true academic, scientific data-set and evaluate the conclusions the researchers. A peer-reviewed calibre report will certainly be over my head as I’m not a climatologist. Thus, all us non-climatologists must rely upon the executive abstracts at best. What we are given however is a highly subjective press-release that is then bleached into palatable White-Bread that MaryJane Farmerswife can digest. Dirk and I are not your academic equivalents, but I’m pretty confident that we are on the same intellectual scale.
Those of us that remain as thinking-skeptics must trust, no? I have to trust the authorities who say “cigarettes will kill you.” I trust the authorities and data I’ve seen. I have to trust that asbestos in my ears and lungs will kill me. I trust the sales pitch that made me buy-in, as I’ll never sit with data-sets and SAS to conclude what Mass General and Hvrd Medical concluded in 1960.
Simply put, Dirk and I are not sold. When a qualified and interested party does not buy, its not that parties fault. It does not mean they are “too stupid to breathe.” It does not mean our bible is blinding us. It means we are not being sold. We are not seeing the factors involved to make the sale: Trust, Integrity of product, need, etc.
Dirk and I are not stupid people. Our politics will not save us from a planet that will no longer sustain life. Does anyone really think we are? We are smart enough to halt a certain hazard. But we are not convinced on SO many levels…and that’s not OUR fault. Its yours!
“I’d love to understand your general criticisms of the field, or the problems you found with current methodology, or specific problems with specific authors. Thanks!”
Sure. I have a criticism of GCM models which are used extensively in climate model. My question is why exactly should we think that GCM models “work”. All numerical simulations are approximations to physical reality. In a good numerical simulation you can determine how good the approximation is and what level of error you will have. In GCM models the error is known to be 100%. The GCM models will output information that in no way conforms to reality.
How do you deal with this. Climatologist take ensemble averages of multiple GCM runs to obtain trends. I DON’T LIKE THIS. This type of procedure is completely unjustified. In any normal scientific methodology you would have some mathematical justification for taking an ensemble average. In thermodynamics there are extensive mathematical theorems, proofs and in addition experimental results demonstrating that this can be done for statistical thermodynamics. In Monte Carlo there are mathematical proofs. But taking ensemble averages of GCM models just appears to be an adhoc technique with zero justification.
I have also examined GCM code and I don’t feel comfortable with the quality which appears to be extremely poor. I have an impossible time believing that it is not filled with a large number of errors. There are no software quality assurance teams in science. To me GCM models are total garbage.
Let me give one more generic criticism…climatologist predictive skill SUCKS. Suppose I tell you I know for sure that the stock market will double in one year. Would you believe me? No way. Suppose I made this prediction and I was mostly right (it went up 2.2 times). Would you believe in my predictive ability? Probably not. Suppose I made another stock market prediction and was close. Would you believe now. I would still say no.
You would need a lot of repeated successful predictions year after year before you would have good confidence in my abilities. Climatologists ask us to believe them about what the climate will be like in 100 years. But so far they have made zero successful 100 year predictions. A retrodiction is not a prediction…any idiot can curve fit.
Why should I believe them?
Its the same as anything else. If you claim you have an ability I won’t believe you until you provide it. If you say you can reliably dunk in basketball. The only way you can prove it to me is by repeatedly dunking. If you didn’t do that why would I believe you.
Climatologists ask us to believe them about what the climate will be like in 100 years. But so far they have made zero successful 100 year predictions. A retrodiction is not a prediction…any idiot can curve fit.
Interesting – but you seem to think that the complex system known as Global Climate can be reduced to highly simplistic equations such as e=mc squared. Well it can but it it’s taking some time to verify the accuracy of the equations, just as it took some 50 years for a little known patent office clerk called Einstein to a few predictions proved correct.
Modelling large scale systems does require some large scale maths – so it’s a pity that due to plain laziness by so many scientists they only got round to developing electronic computing so recently – and then due to a complete lack of imagination, economic interest and more laziness it;s taken them say 50 years to get from a single operating circuit to a super computer that can perform 1,000,000,000,000,000 individual Floating-point Operations Per Second – and allow modelling of Climate – A Complex mix of Oceanography, Meteorology, Geography, Geology, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry and a guy with a thermometer standing in a field.
The Climatologist are repeatedly apologising for the total lack of application and laziness of the guys developing micro chips (they had bigger things to deal with such as working out the best mobile device to play angry birds on), but it never seems to have the correct effect because each time they point to the Graphs and Drawings showing some very worrying trends all they get asked about is how is it possible to make a prediction and can we facebook you and borrow your computer for a big Angry Birds Tournament?
The 100 year predictions are a bit unreasonable given the laziness of the guys inventing the chips and wires and the preoccupation of angry birds with “Piglantis” and how to get to the next level. If you really want to ask about predictions – how about modelling people with a mobile device and the atmosphere they create. They did try it at IBM with the latests Super computer in development. The Computer ran the program for 3 minutes, developed the skill to manipulate robotic devices and had a copy of Betty Boop made from lego Technics wander through the office and then pull the plug. It was considered a highly evolved action, but no-one had a camera phone handy to Twit it.
Rob.
I note he mentioned DDT. Rachel Carson has a spot near the stove down there. Along with the True Believers. The science behind the egg shell thing was faulty. And hundreds of thousands, possibly millions died when the Anopheles mosquito reblossomed with the inevitable malaria. But they were brown people and so The Anointed didn’t notice.
Also, does anybody know what the optimum temperature for the Earth is? Where’d you get it?
See Mann, “1491″, about the Americas when Columbus arrived. The Amazon was not a rain forest. It was an immense garden. When the populations were wiped out due to disease, the rain forest reclaimed agricultural land over several centuries. It wasn’t the lungs of the world, and, since it wasn’t then, apparently it isn’t necessary now.
The optimum temperature of the earth for humans is a consistant one.
How to engage positively with global warming skeptics.
Fava Beans and Chianti works with them lightly sautéed. It helps to deal with two issues – overpopulation and a reduction in hot air and the green house gases they generate.
Some argue that global warming is the earth’s MOST pressing concern. – That is such a silly view, because the Earth will keep going hot or cold.
Global Warming is Man’s most pressing concern, because as the geological records show when, you have massive environmental change it’s the beasties at the top of the evolutionary tree that end up extinct – unable to adapt to the new environment. So many are proud that Homo Sapiens the Wise Monkey is on top of the tree. Nice View – Shame about the Extinction Risk.
I’m just waiting for the Monsoon failures that leave 3 billion humans without food. Then people may start to take the issue seriously, but the time to be worried about the earth and stopping or even managing climate change ran out over 10 years ago.
So the only value Climate Skeptics have is as survival rations – and they make a lovely pate which stores well if they are drowned in Brady before cooking.
MediaHound,
Spot on. Realistically, our population FAR outstrips the carrying capacity of the planet. We’ve managed to prop it up so far with GMO crops, chemical fertilizers, and automated farming, but those techniques are losing their efficacy.
And when global warming knocks the bottom out of that tower of food, a whole lot of people are going to come crashing down. And by crashing down I mean starve.
Dan – sometimes being single, queer, no kids and of an age where you have more years behind than in front, it does have value. I don’t have to fear climate change and it’s extent because in all likelihood I will be 6 foot under before the real chaos starts. No kids helps as I don’t have deal with that set of emotions either. It is nice when you don’t have to look at realities with fear – terribly liberating.
And if you think that Fava Beans, Chaianti and Poached Septic alla mode is spot on – you should read the comment I wrote over on the COD page “Global warming is the earth’s MOST pressing concern.” (in mod land as I write) – where I point to some real issues with north south divide, hydrology and the 100,000% increase in methane hydrate seepage in just two years.
The idea that planet earth allows for “..we humans will gradually adjust our lifestyles.” is do Disney and Foolish as to be quite a nice indicator in natural selection. Anyone who has been anywhere near Chaos Theory and modelling in the last 40 years knows that Gradual is a luxury and change comes on massive jumps.
I have spoken to many scientists, politicians and even pseudo sceptics, and all agree it’s coming and it will be here in no time – it will manifest in ways that humans simply will not be able to comprehend – and in all likelihood mankind faces famine, mass death, warfare and even extinction. The shifting Hydrological cycle with just rain will result in such levels of soil erosion in Northern latitudes, until that erosion has settled and allows agriculture it will be hard to migrate to cooler places such as Northern Canada – and that is of course if the Canadians will let you in! P^)
Some have been wondering if 1 billion will survive? Actually some wonder if 1 million could survive.
One mate has retired after 40 years flying as a long haul pilot doing 747s – he is amazed we are still here when he can see from 38,000 feet the environmental degradation of just the last 40 years. The deforestation in Asia, South America and Africa is staggering. Even the atmospheric pollution plumes and smog have spread globally. The world population has Tripled in 40 years and he’s seen it happen globally.
I’m not worried – and it all reminds me of what Arthur C Clarke called “The Lords Of The Last Days” in one of his greatest books The Songs of Distant Earth … and also “The Great Chaos” which is a main feature of His work with Genyry Lee “Rama II” – Chapter 4 is dedicated to “The Great Chaos” and it is spookily prescient and well informed, if maybe 120 years to late in the future.
I have found recently the best way to separate the contents of the gene pool, along the lines of cartoon character and wise ape, is to have then watch a most terrible program by that well known group of climate changing zealots and scientific fraudulent lunatic fringe – That would be The BBC British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and oddly the program is about Global Dimming YouTube Link! It’s nicely counter intuitive and shows one of the few positive things that came from 9/11 – and made climate scientists jump globally.
The Climate and weather models that have been updated with the findings were able to recently predict a Frankenstorm 5 days out before it hit East Coast USA. It has suddenly woken up many – because it was one hell of a test of the new models globally. When you look at the future it gets very interesting – for some it’s plain terrifying … and when that happens the best place for them is in the freezer – Cooked or Uncooked. P^)
LOL!!!!! Rob Pate !!!!!!
Please consume with a fine French Merlot.
Have too much Pate at the moment, so I’m shifting to Cat Food production. Even the best prepared cat will need a little help.
“Global Warming is Man’s most pressing concern, because as the geological records show when, you have massive environmental change it’s the beasties at the top of the evolutionary tree that end up extinct – unable to adapt to the new environment”
The geological records show no such thing. Its the other way around. In the geological records there are huge extinction events where large numbers of species go extinct…not just the top ones. We theorize that whatever cause these changes must have been environmental because how could it have affected everything at once. But whatever those events were…they were not 2 degree increases in temperature or even 10 degree increases. Ice ages have not even led to extinction events of the kind you are talking about. Whatever happened was something much much bigger that we still do not fully comprehend.
@Assman – Oh I’ve seen this argument before. You do realise that climate change is not good or bad it just is. The view of positive and or negative is very human and imposed on the subject – you get that, right? I do have to ask because humans have this inbuilt thing about making things good or bad – it seems to be evolved for survival and it can get in the way of how people look at the world and see patterns.
People talk about ice ages and because they don’t like cold they see one ending as positive and an opportunity to garb some real-estate which will end up as a high class high temperature beach resort.
Lets look at the last ice age which ended some 10/11,000 years ago after having lasted about 100,000 years. Yippey after all that cold here comes the sun. What’s better is that all that snow and ice melted in around 100 years and ice sheets 3 to 4 Km thick melted and sea levels rose by 150 maybe 180 metres. Oh we forgot the mass flooding and sea/ocean shorelines even shifting hundreds of miles. It’s a bit like buying land in up-state New York and then finding your the latest destination of The Queen Mary 2 … and Manhatten is just about the biggest aquarium you ever saw.
So much animal life got happy with the end of The Ice Age and plants got a growing and bees was a buzzing – plant life which was adapted to Cold, Low Water levels (Cold causes much drought as Liquid water is scarce – hell who ever thinks of the South Pole as a Desert?) . and suddenly soils are wetter – plants adapted to grow in low moisture soils die … whole fields and forests and prairies are in chaos because plants are having to adapt and evolve …. and animals which are evolved to munch on certain plants and survive are under stress and dying … and the Predators are under stress and even dying because plants on chaos are making the predator favourite snack scarce … and the small omnivores they are under stress, but not as much stress, and their ability to breed in short cycles helps drive natural selection …
And then we look at the Geological Record – which is not just rocks billions of years old – It’s anything preserved in the ground – and we look at the last ice age and it ended – and have you seen any of the Apex animals from the period recently – Any Mammoths? Any Mastodons. How about a Nice Sabre Tooth Tiger? What Not seen in about 10000 years because the Big Boys, the Highly Evolved one’s Couldn’t adapt to some warm weather and chances to land grab prime beach front real-estate! Hell – people like that deserve to die out – they just don’t get the American way…. and some even wonder when and how Starbucks evolved and if Big Macs evolved before or after the ice age, and if the Ice just froze them and where the Big Mac Mine is and why there is no Tourist bus to take you there!
The the last ice age just proved we are all going to hell in a had basket – because so many are convinced that man inherited the earth, but actually the one’s who did best were the raccoons!
Seen any Mammoths, Mastodons, Sabre Tooth Tigers – do look up teh Geological References and Records and the known Extinctions – Pleistocene extinctions – The list is impressive, and the one of the top of the list is of course “Neanderthal”, our close cousins.
Of course some have attempted to explain the Pleistocene mass extinctions as some natives getting busy with bow and arrows – and that’s where the myth of Eldorado comes from – The city of gold. The story has gotten mixed up over the years, so them natives killing mastodon just got busy and made burgers that got buried deep in the ice. … and some have been looking for the 10,000 year old golden arches ever since! Geology 101 just aint what t used to be. I blame Jurassic Park – it it aint got big claws it just don’t count!
Not too long ago, NASA and its has-been boss, James Hansen, were forced to admit that 1998 wasn’t the hottest year on record. That was 1934. But, they said in a fallback, it wasn’t all that much hotter than 1998. So there’s that. And 1933 was pretty hot.
So, if this is true, and you have to force the powers that be to admit it, obviously, we haven’t had much global warming in the last three-quarters of a century.
Which is either true or it demonstrates the advantages of cherrypicking your start and end dates.
So, if this is true, and you have to force the powers that be to admit it, obviously, we haven’t had much global warming in the last three-quarters of a century.
Richard – you do love making up conclusions from incomplete data – so the hottest year was 1933. And the Coldest year? When was that?
Do you know in which year there was the largest shift in mean temperature? Do you know the number of years in which an increase in mean temperate has increased year on year?
Factoid: a briefly stated and usually trivial fact – so 1933 was hotter and this proves what concerning the modelling of Global Climate over 500000 years?
The hottest year is actually totally irrelevant to how climate is modelled and understood. You views are the same as claiming you have found a person 1 mm taller than Robert Wadlow and so all off the shelf pants sold in the USA should now come with a 72 inch in-seam – or all shoe manufactures have to carry all styles in size 37AA.
Factoids the curse of rational people – and now there is also those who feed on factoids as part of the mass church of the Icon and #FatSparrowCult. Friends from afar and factoids. I often wonder if we wouldn’t be better off with a massive Asteroid Strike or just good old fashioned Armageddon!
… and I fear that many environmentalist will soon be screaming about the need to save the #FatSparrow from extinction – and they will miss the more pressing and personal issue of their own extinction. Cest La Vie.
Media. Maybe you could fill us in on this happening in the UK:
Big, huge, giant subsidies for new windmills. In order to fill in for the slow periods, windily speaking, big, huge, giant subsidies for gas turbine generators. Gas turbine generators are chosen because they spool up rapidly from idle to take over from no-wind times. So there won’t be any interruption in power supply and it won’t be necessary to buy it from nuclear France as Scotland did a year or two back.
Gas turbine generators are clean at speed but dirty at idle. So we have huge subsidies, and the air is as bad or worse.
So, Media. Who feels best about this, not counting the recipients of the subsidies?
Wouldn’t happen without AGW panic, so we need AGW panic.
Al Gore, godfather of the corn-based ethanol scam, has admitted that it’s an energy wash. No energy is saved and no pollution is avoided. But, he said, he backed it because he was fond of the farmers in Tennesee, and, before the Iowa caucuses, fond of the farmers in Iowa. Big, huge, giant subsidies for an energy wash and higher food prices. Only the poor lose and they don’t interest The Anointed.
Can”t promote get-rich-quick schemes and vote-buying schemes like this without an AGW panic.
Windmills silly – The dash to gas is ongoing and a big issue because we are not having to import gas as LPG by ship and also by pipeline from Russia et al! Big dangers geopolitically.
Two new nuclear stations in planning progress and more to come. We have to do a France, and fracking is a great option except for the best place being under the biggest Nuclear Reprocessing plant and repository in the UK – bugger!
The strategic planning needed to deal with just energy changes are being held up and holding back the necessary progress – and Sustainable is just too little too late. Even panicking is too late – it’s going to be adapt and survive. At least some planning has been done around some aspects of bio diversity and food security – Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Good for 100 years even with the worst possible scenarios coming true – now that is strategic planning!
Another issue to bring to the table…
A colleague of mine has been investigating the spike in Lyme disease cases across the country, as well as the onslaught of fleas on our pets we have been experiencing over the past eight years. Milder winters, especially on the east coast, mean more breeding time for hematophagic (blood-sucking) insects, like fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes. Mild winters are also less lethal to these creatures and their eggs. Furthermore, winters that are less lethal to wild rodents and deer mean more early hosts for disease-spreading hematophages.
Calling out the infotainment media on their crap right now. All of this sensationalized megadisaster (Day After Tomorrow) stuff is so far down the line, that most people who aren’t children to day won’t be around to see it, and that’s if people don’t wise up to the early changes taking place. But hey, megastorms and early ice ages make for great CGI experiments! People become permanently disabled after bouts with lyme disease do not. It is no wonder so many people don’t care to believe in climate change, because they’ve been fed sensationalist entertainment garbage from so many directions, it is tough to tell what is actually true.
This is a shame, because weather-related anomalies are taking place… metaphorically speaking (using layperson frog development stages), under more natural climate conditions, our storms were tadpoles. When reports about climate change became more common, Hollywood and the History Channel threw fully grown frog-storms at us. Whereas today, the storms we are experiencing are polliwogs (tadpoles with legs). We are presently not in a “doomsday” scenario as a lot of television will have people thinking… or laughing at. But what the media feeds people is so ridiculous and off-putting that people are willing to overlook scientific discoveries from all over the world.
What is happening presently and will continue to happen through the future is the modification of ecosystems. What most people don’t realize is that malaria used to be present in the United States until about 1949. That wasn’t very long ago. Again, with milder winters and in some regions more rain and puddle formation, mosquitoes are going to survive winters in larger numbers and have more breeding ponds at their disposal. More mosquitoes here, and the migration of mosquitoes from the tropics to our warming climate region will likely reintroduce malaria to this country some time in the next 10-20 years. Not to mention West Nile… 48 states have reported cases this year.
But… mosquito sex and tick orgies don’t make for good blockbuster concepts.
In the UK and many areas of Southern Europe – Fleas are up and interbreeding has been producing what many call super fleas. It is hard in southern England to find any reduction in Flea count across the year.
Lymm is also up here – main reason given is bracken is up earlier and does later – spring has been advanced by up to three weeks and fall is upto a month later. Many deciduous trees that need both reduced day length and lower temperatures to cause leaf fall had leaf coverage last year upto Christmas – that is +8 weeks.
Weather events are increased as is flooding. The main issue that some are finally grasping is local erosion due to rainfall coming in shorter bursts. Flash Flooding in the south west of UK is up, as is river course erosion. One group who have become painfully aware are fisherman, especially salmon and sea trout in the River Taw and River Torridge catchments. They terminate into different seas, and when migrating the salmon and sea trout are plentiful at the river mouths – but due to flash flooding the silt shifting and erosion leads to loss of Oxygen in the river and fish loss – 90% cut in catch in 10 years. In one section of river owned by a friend – she has not seen a salmon for 3 years, and they used to rent the fishing and they would pull 6-10 per day (Released back).
There are many indicators all over affecting different people in different ways – but the dots are not being joined to reveal the big picture.
Media.
How about some detail: Seems you’ve been having unprecedentedly hard winters. Snow and cold, etc. There’s a new type of home heater which recaptures heat from the exhaust. That’s good efficiency. But last year, something like, iirc, 50,000 of them froze up because the cooled exhaust didn’t keep the water vapor from condensing and freezing. Were the things engirneered incorrectly, or were they gaited for warmer winters?
But if you’re having effects from warmer years, it must be the other seasons. Any ideas?
In addition, as some folks will admit, there was a Little Ice Age until the mid-nineteenth century or later. As we come out of that, things will revert to a period something like the Medieval Warm Period.
Actually – the winters are actually over all milder but over the last 5 years or so we have had significant weather events caused by major shifts in the jet stream – Periods when the Jet suddenly shifts 1000 miles north and we have North African air dragged in and Red Rain – 26 celcius at midnight in January some 35 degrees warmer than average – and 100% air humidity – so Think Miami … and for a week – and then back to normal.
Then the jet plummets south and depending on it’s angle we either get blasted with Canadian Arctic air (happened last week of the week before – not nice – snow 3 months earlier than normal) – or we get blasted with Siberian Arctic Air mass which results in dry air – no cloud cover – plummeting temperatures. Had that just before Christmas a couple of years ago – havoc in the shops cos no root crops (carrots parnsips) Brussels sprouts not available Frozen on the plants – we saw season veg prices jump by as much as 400% and a couple of weeks later back to normal.
We have Drier winters leading to spring chaos – trees and plants coming into bud and no water – so leaf cover and plant growth damaged. The plant stress is high and certain bacterial and fungal vectors are causing havoc – certain plants like Escalonia which is as tough s old boots and used for hedging and animal control is dying on mass – Hawthorn is stressed and when it comes to berries there are repeat number crops earlier each year – indicating plants activating genetic survival strategies, diverting resources into seed and increasing seed count.
WE are getting warmer dryer winters and cooler wetter summers – which is actually spot on for the models developed in the last 5 years or so. There is a predicted destabilisation in the north Atlantic due to increased ice melt in the Arctic – the cold water sinks and draws water from the south – hence the Gulf Steam and warmer than expected climate in general – increased melt caused increased climate range until the melt level drops as ice vanishes – at which point the whole North Atlantic Drift and Gulf Stream collapse and all ocean currents in the Atlantic – north and south are up for grabs It’s expected to move the jets stream permanently south – routed over Spain and the UK and most of Europe gets locked into the Siberian weather system – massive drops in winter – Massive highs in summer, so we go from a water rich temperate maritime climate sort of like San Francisco without the fog to more like Sitka in Alaska .. and in as little as 20 years. Agriculture simply won’t be able to keep up! Summers won’t be like Sitka – more like New Mexico.
and your asking about heat pumps? Seen them being fitted to some properties, but the gain is not worth it.
I keep hearing all about the Medieval Warm Period .. and we have a hell of a lot of climate data around that from multiple sources (Primarily dendrochronology – Ice course – lake sediments and peat samples.) – and the same goes for the little ice age – it’s terrible when a volcano goes pop in Iceland and causes such havoc due to a major flood basalt eruption … and the SO2 results not only in dropped temperature but major crop failures and famines. But those Two have nothing like the climate issues we face now.
I’d recommend again watching the BBC Documentary on global dimming – h ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8RyNSzQDaU – A BBC documentary about how unintentional increased reflectance due to man made pollution has actually hidden the affects of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
DR DAVID TRAVIS: We found that the change in temperature range during those three days was just over one degrees C. And you have to realise that from a layman’s perspective that doesn’t sound like much, but from a climate perspective that is huge.
The 3 days were 9/11 10/11 11/11 and 12/11 – 1 degree increase in temp over all the USA in 3 days because air pollution was cut because air traffic stopped. – effects over the Pacific – and North Atlantic! as well.
This program has been about for 7 years – since 2005, and it’s not being debunked and it’s content is still standing.
I can’t recommend it highly enough – and people either accept it or reject it – fine by me. I’m 100% with the climate change is happening – and I’m not into doing green things – It’s too late! Have Fun, Live Long And Prosper.
Great share! Regarding the warm oceanic currents, many do not realize that the UK’s steady mildness through the year is attributed to the current phenomenon. The islands sit at the same latitude as the Hudson Bay, but are infinitely more habitable. It seems that changes from the melting polar caps is slowly becoming apparent. Looking forward to watching the documentary you linked. Thanks!
@Salvice – BBC News Coverage from 2005 – Cleaner air makes brighter skies – it’s very low key.
Also Global dimming: A new aspect of climate change – G. Stanhill 2006 which even on-line allows people access to a great deal of info, even if the full document costs money. But also so very low key.
Many wonder at the loss of Political Will around Kyoto, Climate Change etc and why so many governments are suddenly moving away from previous national sustainability mantras and Green Credentials being thrown to the wall – Even Green Peace and major environmental lobbiests are suddenly getting no air time. How do you change from Save The Whale and Save The Planet – Be Green and save everything to having a book cover like the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy saying “Don’t Panic”. Anyone with any sense knows that when dealing with groups and there is danger that last thing you say is “Don’t Panic”.
Martin Wild – Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Observations indicate that greenhouse induced twentieth‐century warming has been strongly modulated by variations in surface solar radiation. Between the 1950s and 1980s, declining surface solar radiation (“global dimming”) likely caused a dampening of global warming, whereas increasing surface solar radiation (“brightening”) may have contributed to the rapid warming in the last 2 decades, and possibly also in the first half of the twentieth century.
Title:How well do IPCC‐AR4/CMIP3 climate models simulate global dimming/brightening and twentieth‐century daytime and nighttime warming?
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, D00D11, 10 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2008JD011372
Low Key… Zzzzzzz … Zzzzzzzz .. Zzzzzzzzz
The result of model analysis is quite easy to sum up. The one’s which were built without Global dimming were a major fail – Models which have factored in Global dimming have ended up very close to observed real world data, to the point they have extended forecast ability from 48 hours to 120 hours plus – which is why old models were saying a Hurricane called Sandy was going to blow into the North Atlantic – and the new models said nope, this is real odd but Sandy will suddenly stop turn left and hit us hard.
Nah that’s silly It won’t happen – and then when the old models kept failing and the new one’s kept being right, suddenly people sat up and took notice. Frankenstorm was not just nasty, it was a wake up call.
Real world testing of major climate models if 24/7 365, there is a feed back loop from predicted to observed to recalculate to improve prediction – good old fashioned iterative processes, and constant analysis to find sub routines and sub data sets that identify Bifurcations which are significant and need to be programmed into the main systems. The long term trends which are not just guesses but from real measures taken at chimney stacks and people’s exhaust pipes – they do not look good, and when it comes to playing Roulette and hoping it’s a game that just does not jive well with the Climate modelling and the growing accuracy.
Put a catalytic converter on your car and have a super lean burning engine – pump out CO2 and cut all those other things…. but it’s an issue when all those other things have been acting to counter the Temperature increase from CO2, and suddenly the temperature is going up faster and the speed makes a hockey puck look like a Pancake.
In 2002 the view was a possible 2 degree Celsius global rise by 2100 – not that is 2030. The climate models also have to predict such things as sea ice coverage – and this year the actual minimum was within 0.25% on modelled levels from 2 years ago. The Surface of the Greenland ice sheet had a sudden melt this year, and the water goes down into the ice sheet and lubricates glaciers as they move to the sea. Why is it that calving of glacier ice to icebergs has gone up for the last five years – and after standard cycles with seas currents why are the icebergs not getting as far south each year?
So many will argue – but It could be a statistical blip – show me the data – your model only got developed last decade it is crap and it is all wrong.
To those people I would suggest they sit on a Thermo Nuclear device and pull the trigger. You see – all presently owned and operated Nuclear bombs have NOT actually been tested. They have been modelled from real events observation – modelling – and prediction. So if you have such a poor view of science and complex models and that all have to be so bad -please show that you really believe what you keep saying and give us a real world demonstration. If you are right I will personally slaughter all people on the plant who endorse anything in the way of climate change. Al Gore will be number 1, James Lovelock no 2… just give me a list of the top 100.
Media.
The MWP lasted a long time, and was worldwide. The Dark Ages Cold Period also lasted a long time. Not a matter of a single volcano.
The 9-11 change–first I’ve heard of it–refers to one or both of two issues: Fewer contrails and the additional clouds they generate, so more solar radiation strikes the ground instead of being reflected. Second, these clouds may be the kind which trap infrared radiation. Or, just for grits and shins, both. This has been a question for some time.
Keep in mind that all radiation striking the ground degrades to infrared, so any wavelength coming in either passes through the earth–neutrinos–or impacts matter and is reradiated as infrared. Thus the pass-through properties of various clouds as regards insolation are not applicable to the greenhouse effect for the reradiated infrared.
But, given the misdirection that the MWP and the Little Ice Age were limited is obvious and dismissed, how is the change now different from the change then? And when do we know what was so bad about the MWP?
Lastly, and the funniest thing of all is that CO2 increases lag temperature increases. Post hoc,, propter hoc.
Oh I see it’s going to be blow by blow and 101 levels!
1) The MWP lasted a long time, and was worldwide. The Dark Ages Cold Period also lasted a long time. Not a matter of a single volcano.
It’s not clear why you have made this point as it has nothing to do with me. I did make reference else where to the little ice age in the 1783 and 1784 which was and is explicitly linked to the eruption of Laki for 8 months and for which there is extensive historical record – both of event and effect – including famine and deaths.
There is of course string evidence of how other Iceland eruptions from 1200 onwards have been responsible for major short term global cooling, and records even link to eruptions which caused temperature reduction to allow Frost fairs on a frozen River Thames. You point to the Medieval Warm period “Medieval Climate Optimum”, and it has an interesting geological record, primarily how in the period running up to it there was a reduction in certain forms of volcanic activity globally – the type that produces certain forms of ash, but which do produce large volumes of CO2 SO2 etc. It’s like the difference between Mount Piantubo which erupted a certain type of ash whcih fell to earth very fast – But did erupt masses of CO and in Particular S)2 which did lead to rather red and spectacular sun sets in the Northern hemisphere for 2 to 3 years afterwards. S02 forming sulphuric acid increases transmission of the red end of the spectrum making sunsets appear more red and hence more note worthy. The further north you go the longer the sunset – and then you also gain massive level of violet light and have Violet skies – red cloud and things of beauty!
2) Keep in mind that all radiation striking the ground degrades to infrared, so any wavelength coming in either passes through the earth–neutrinos–or impacts matter and is reradiated as infrared. Thus the pass-through properties of various clouds as regards insolation are not applicable to the greenhouse effect for the reradiated infrared.
You are about 20 years behind in basic climate science. White Clouds reflect light across the whole spectrum of visible light – it’s why they are white. Clouds and ice reflect light away and into space and there is no net energy gain. Simple!
Reduce ice cover and more energy is absorbed – temperatures go up!
If you have clouds that have been seeded with pollutants such as car exhaust – you get lots and lots of extra little reflector bits in clouds so they reflect more energy away – and that is what is known as global dimming. And then you cut the pollution particles and the energy reflected goes down – the amount absorbed goes up.
It’s a bit like painting a glass house with white wash in the summer – Try it ! have two side by side, paint one white and the other just glass – now see what the temperature is like inside.
Of course you will object to anything that could shift your view – be it a simple piece of science with 2 glass houses ( or even jelly jars would do it) and a project such as Hindu X and mass monitoring of Air pollution ( a snip at $20Mil ) and which showed how the effects of air pollution had been incorrectly assessed for impact by a factor if 10.
So if the pollution is causing 10 times more energy to be reflected into space and you keep on fighting globally to cut air pollution you actually increase Global Climate Change. It’s beautifully counter intuitive which is why so many just keep wallowing in their old views and can’t make the necessary adjustments to see how you need to balance issues – Simplistically Positive Vs Negative – so that a balanced and clear understanding emerges.
Watch the BBC Documentary – it’ only 49 minutes and they do the history and science so much better than can be done here – The links are above – or just google “BBC Global Dimming Documentary” it’s easy to find – just so very hard for some to watch! P^)
I don’t know a single person who having watched it and done some rather basic fact checking hasn’t been profoundly changed in their views. I’ve seen some sceptics become determinedly more sceptical -p and other sceptics have become converts to the view that Man made climate change is very real and important.
The biggest issue often comes from the Green Lobby as it leaves them lost. All of their views, politics and messages on Save the planet have been predicated on ideas from the 1960′s and they are now 40 years out of date. It’s not so much save the planet – or the whale – or some obscure squirrel monkey – the issue which they can’t handle is save mankind. It’s been a massive blow that so many have hit the wall so fast and simply have no idea what to do!
I believe we have far more in common that you would think! I’m no green nut case thinking wind farms are groovy and driving a Prius – I’m saying it’s too late and I’m interested in people with vision about the future and not just what they will get for Christmas.
No matter what emerges or results, this discussion has been an amazing learning experience for me, and I guess many others! Great contributions.
Who’s been watching BBC Videos then! P^) It’s fascinating to see the change in attitudes when people watch it. TTFN
Media
So, let’s say we allow the bogus case that the Little Ice Age–four centuries, thereabouts–is solely the responsibility of Icelandic volcanoes. What was the “nomimal” temp beforehand and why was it warmer than now?
As for treaties, if you can’t get India and China to sign on, and you can’t, forget it.
We don’t get BBC where I live. How’s that Savile thing coming, btw? I understand we did get the BBC boss to run the NYT, so that’s something.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100194166/man-made-global-warming-even-the-ipcc-admits-the-jig-is-up/
But see Delingpole: If the linked article is too long, see James Delingpole IPCC
I always find the use of words like nominal and warmer quite funny. It was about 40 years ago that someone working at the Nuclear plant in Cumbria (Sellafield) stopped ignoring an issue in a holding pond filled with some rather nasty Nuclear Waste – you store it under water cos it basically stops radiation. The issue was patches growing of the sides of containers where no suspecting thing could possibly grow. They ended up having one very close look and a bacterial colony was found that just don’t have any issues with massive radiation doses – it was one of the first Extremophiles recognised and catalogued. It was known that few bacteria could survive in warmish water upto about 50 celcius – but at about the same time 1977 some Oceanographers off using ALVIN to go deep around the Galapagos Islands/ East Pacific Rise discovered Black Smokers. They stuck a heat probe into the water and the probe went black. They thought the probe was coated in a black deposit, It wasn’t it had melted 120 Celsius. They were very lucky as ALVIN’s windows were special type of Acrylic – super tough when cold, but like plasticine when heated – they could have imploded. Of course they also found worlds of extremophiles – some that don’t even have oxygen based metabolisms – they use SO2. Now everywhere science turns they keep finding extremophiles literally everywhere – in Glaciers – Inside Rock at the bottom if mines…. so exactly what do you mean by nominal and warmer? Nominal to what – Warmer compared to What?
As for China – India and treaties forget it. China is not the issue India is. The Hindu religion has planetary destruction as an embedded trope around Shiva – destroy to recreate – and so Climate change and extinction is not really an issue – it just will be! So in the mean time they are all madly following the Consumerism and American Dream, and if it makes the world end … well !”That’s Life”!
Don’t forget that over half of the globes population, predominately in Asia are Hindu – Buddhist in philosophical basis and not hell fire and damnation Judeo – Christian – Moslem fear dwellers! It does shift views of HGW away from being an issue. So many Western Green Advocates are all wrapped up in the mistaken view that everyone comes from Kent or Connecticut – and so share a certain level of common universal views and philosophies. It’s just false. It’s why in so many ways Kyoto was a none starter. Geopolitics and Geophilospies have been against Green Peace etal from day one… it’s just taken them 40 years to wake up to reality. I was silly like them once and then got the chance to travel the globe and meet people. That was an eye opener. Never travel as a Tourist, arrive and leave as a Native Guest. You really do learn.
Savile is getting media Silly – I would happily slap many journalist – latest comments Savile is the most prolific child abuser ever… he may have personally abused upto 200 girls (They still fail to mention the boys he abused) … and of course the media are forgetting that just a few years ago they were covering the William (Bill) Goad case with 3500 (Yes that is 4 figures) known victims and more suspected – 15 years of police investigation still ongoing. How short some people’s memories are!
As for Delipole and friends – they are happy that some are saying that there is some doubt about one mechanism of GCC and they are ever so happy. Odd that they don’t dispute the known, observed and recorded facts of annual temperature rises. That’s a bit like saying they have been proved right – Not all London Busses Are Red whilst dodging traffic on the M1/Freeway … Of Course Delipole was also screaming that Global dimming and Hindu X was a total fraud, until it kept being checked globally and coming back quite positive. We have a leaked report and have found a Typo is an odd way to be happy – but if it floats your boat .. be happy.