Global warming is just half what was projected: IPCC

[troutman]

Rolling Stone previews the AR5:

Global Warming Is Very Real
Scientists are fighting deniers with irrefutable proof the planet is headed for catastrophe

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...-real-20130912

On September 27th, a group of international scientists associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will gather in an old brick brewery in Stockholm and proclaim with near certainty that human activity is altering the planet in profound ways. The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report offers slam-dunk evidence that burning fossil fuels is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warn that sea levels could rise by almost three feet by the end of the century if we don't change our ways. The report will underscore that the basic facts about climate change are more established than ever, and that the consequences of escalating carbon pollution are likely to mean that, as The New York Times recently argued, "babies being born now could live to see the early stages of a global calamity."

A leaked draft of the report points out that the link between fossil-fuel burning and climate change is already observable: "It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010. There is high confidence that this has warmed the ocean, melted snow and ice, raised global mean sea level and changed some climate extremes in the second half of the 20th century."

Draft leaked here?
http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/

The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report
http://www.skepticalscience.com/5-st...n-display.html

[Tinordi]

The reason you act on climate change, or incur short-term costs, is that the long term costs of inaction are likely severe.

Here are the truisms of climate, if you do not accept these then I suggest you not go sailing for fear of falling over the edge of the world:

1. The climate system is warming much faster than is "natural".

2. The reason it is warming so fast is because we are burning fossil fuels and increasing the CO2 composition of the atmosphere.

3. We don't know the short term implications of this but we have strong inclinations as to the long term impacts.

4. These impacts will put severe stresses on basic support systems for civilization such as food and water.

5. The costs of dealing with it now are significantly smaller than trying to deal with it after the fact.

6. This requires us to be comfortable with change in the face of unknown benefits and to pay for actions that we will not enjoy but our grandchildren will.

7. Inaction is a choice to willfully impose a degraded, fragile, poorer future on those next in line.

8. What you can choose to do is to accept short term change and inconveniences in your life. Specifically, if you care about this issue you must vote for politicians who care about action and punish politicians who do nothing.

[mykalberta]

Thats the great thing about these predictions, we should know in our life time (50 years) about the true validity positive or negative of some of these claims. And since everything is archived on the Internet, for the most part people who made predictions can be praised or held accountable.

If beaches along Florida, California, Hawaii, etc significantly recede (say 1 meter or more) and if ocean front properties on the East coast lose alot of their ocean frontage then that will be true evidence of a cause and effect of global warming.

Right now all we have is guesses - some educated and some not. Interesting years ahead.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

The reason you act on climate change, or incur sorry term costs, is that the long term costs of inaction are likely severe.

Here are the truisms of climate, if you do not accept these then I suggest you not go sailing for fear of falling over the edge of the world:

1. The climate system is warming much faster than is "natural".

2. The reason it is warming so fast is because we are burning fossil fuels and increasing the composition of the atmosphere.

3. We don't know the short term implications of this but we have strong inclinations add to the long term impacts.

4. These impacts will put severe stresses on basic support systems for civilization such as good and water.

5. The costs of dealing with it now are significantly smaller than trying to deal with it after the fact.

6. This requires us to be comfortable with change in the face of unknown benefits and to pay for actions that we will not enjoy but our grandchildren will.

7. Inaction is a choice to willfully impose a degraded, fragile, poorer future on those next in line.

8. What you can choose to do is to accept short term change and inconveniences in your life. Specifically if you care about this issue you must come for politicians who care about action and punish politicians who do nothing.

You miss one important point.

ITS TOO LATE and NOT POSSIBLE to stop.

We have already missed the boat on the 2 degrees of warming. In order to stabilize at two degrees and have everyone on Earth emit carbon we need to cut Canadian emissions by 95% to 97%. These things are not achievalbe. Every political solution of reducing greenhouse gases does nothing to stop global warming.

Dealing with the effects of Global warming seems much more practical then trying to stop it when we can't. Even if somehow you could get China, US, India, and Russia to agree you still can't stop it. So better options will be some sort of geo-engineering solution. Its too late to cut Carbon.

[Knut]

I will relay the reason I changed my mind on this issue.

1) Grew up with a father that was quite right wing and stated that climate change was false.

2) Went to university and debated the theory of "man made climate change".

3) A few years out of university I realized I was in a career that was evidence based. Why was I not looking at evidence for all my other beliefs in life.

Therefore I came to accept that climate change is man made. The science Is undeniable. People can not just cherry pick when they want to use evidence and when they do not.

The real question is how to eliminate / mitigate the effects of this change. Too bad we have to waste so much time changing minds out there to not get to this real question.

[PsYcNeT]

Why is it so hard for people to just admit that

a) it's ludicrous to assume that man has no affect on the world's climate

and

b) we (me, you, most people) are just too lazy to care or do anything about it

it seems so disingenuous to deny climate science when the end result of either climate change denial or just saying "#### it, I don't really care" is not doing anything.

Why not be more honest and just say you don't give a #### rather than spend so much time and effort fighting sustainability?

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by GGG

You miss one important point.

ITS TOO LATE and NOT POSSIBLE to stop.

We have already missed the boat on the 2 degrees of warming. In order to stabilize at two degrees and have everyone on Earth emit carbon we need to cut Canadian emissions by 95% to 97%. These things are not achievalbe. Every political solution of reducing greenhouse gases does nothing to stop global warming.

Dealing with the effects of Global warming seems much more practical then trying to stop it when we can't. Even if somehow you could get China, US, India, and Russia to agree you still can't stop it. So better options will be some sort of geo-engineering solution. Its too late to cut Carbon.

Your basic point is not true. We can still avoid 2 degree warning look up the IEA's 450 ppm scenarios. It would take a Herculean effort but it's not impossible.

Second your conclusion is not smart.

Even if we can't avoid 2 degree warming, 3 degree warming is better than 4 and so on. Your conclusion conflicts with truism 6, that dealing with it now is cheaper than dealing with it then.

An analogy to your point is getting a flood warning and not sandbagging the dyke. We can't prevent the flood so may as well do nothing. But what if reinforcing the dyke reduced flood damage by half? That's what we're dealing with here.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Why is it so hard for people to just admit that

a) it's ludicrous to assume that man has no affect on the world's climate

and

b) we (me, you, most people) are just too lazy to care or do anything about it

it seems so disingenuous to deny climate science when the end result of either climate change denial or just saying "#### it, I don't really care" is not doing anything.

Why not be more honest and just say you don't give a #### rather than spend so much time and effort fighting sustainability?

Ha ha ha. You never disappoint.

I will give Tinordi props as I was expecting the worst from him as well but he posted a solid, non-condescending post with good points.

[troutman]

Why Debunk Climate Change Deniers?

By Phil Plait

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astro...speak_out.html

[photon]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Your interpretation of my comment is very selective in drawing conclusions that I believe that article 100%

Your comments only make sense if you believe the conclusions of the article, if you disagreed with the conclusions in the article, or if you had a more nuanced view (and "shocking lol and "man controls everything" certainly aren't nuanced), your comments wouldn't make any sense.

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

and that I belive anything refuting it is false.

Never said that, I said you implied it with your comments. But if you believe something refuting the conclusions of the article is true, again your comments wouldn't make sense.

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Amazing you could get all that conclusive evidence out of a very general post. Bias comes from everyone including yourself.

All your general posts on the subject say the same thing. "Shocking lol.", "tell us how ignorant we are for not accepting that man controls everything including the earth's weather" (when no one even claims that).

I'm not immune to bias of course, but I'm pretty confident that your responses on this topic here have always been along these lines, that's all I have to go by.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by photon

Your comments only make sense if you believe the conclusions of the article, if you disagreed with the conclusions in the article, or if you had a more nuanced view (and "shocking lol and "man controls everything" certainly aren't nuanced), your comments wouldn't make any sense.



Never said that, I said you implied it with your comments. But if you believe something refuting the conclusions of the article is true, again your comments wouldn't make sense.



All your general posts on the subject say the same thing. "Shocking lol.", "tell us how ignorant we are for not accepting that man controls everything including the earth's weather" (when no one even claims that).

I'm not immune to bias of course, but I'm pretty confident that your responses on this topic here have always been along these lines, that's all I have to go by.

The old, I may have implied that, but I didn't say those exact words defence

[Tinordi]

http://videos.huffingtonpost.com/for...iews-517432067

Hesla is this you?

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

If you accept that data point, you're accepting that man made climate change is a reality.

Are you sure you want to do that?

Of course...why would I not?Sorry to rain on your parade of condecension.I have little doubt that man has contributed to some degree. What degeree is pretty important though when deciding to implement changes that could quite literally, affect millions of peoples ability to make a living/support their families. Not sure why that wouldn't be just as important facet of this debate as anything else.

Again, and this is where i have no idea, the earth has for its entire existance warmed and cooled. Undeniable fact. It has done so just in my lifetime as a matter of fact. So to what degree do we "tip the apple cart" chasing down a solutiuon that will never work to the degree we wish because of the cycle of warming/cooling the planet has always experienced?

There are valid points on both sides of this thing...and extremists as well, which are illustrated in this very thread alone.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

The old, I may have implied that, but I didn't say those exact words defence

???

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Of course...why would I not?Sorry to rain on your parade of condecension.I have little doubt that man has contributed to some degree. What degeree is pretty important though when deciding to implement changes that could quite literally, affect millions of peoples ability to make a living/support their families. Not sure why that wouldn't be just as important facet of this debate as anything else.

Again, and this is where i have no idea, the earth has for its entire existance warmed and cooled. Undeniable fact. It has done so just in my lifetime as a matter of fact. So to what degree do we "tip the apple cart" chasing down a solutiuon that will never work to the degree we wish because of the cycle of warming/cooling the planet has always experienced?

There are valid points on both sides of this thing...and extremists as well, which are illustrated in this very thread alone.

You have not yet raised a valid point. Your straw man that the Earth natural warms and cools is not relevant to this conversation because we are dealing with human forced warming. Your starting point for entering this discussion is faulty. We are out of a natural cycle and are at levels of atmosphere CO2 concentration not seen in millions of years.

You are also engaging in a faulty appeal to reason argument that if you're "in the middle" of the debate spectrum then you are reasonable. This is not supported by fact which says that the entire side of one debate is based on fantasy.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Your basic point is not true. We can still avoid 2 degree warning look up the IEA's 450 ppm scenarios. It would take a Herculean effort but it's not impossible.

Second your conclusion is not smart.

Even if we can't avoid 2 degree warming, 3 degree warming is better than 4 and so on. Your conclusion conflicts with truism 6, that dealing with it now is cheaper than dealing with it then.

An analogy to your point is getting a flood warning and not sandbagging the dyke. We can't prevent the flood so may as well do nothing. But what if reinforcing the dyke reduced flood damage by half? That's what we're dealing with here.

My understanding is that due to the lag in effect of cutting C02 emmissions and seeign atmospheric reductions is that even if we stop emitting now we still go over the 2 degree mark. Haven't looked at the most recent models though. Either way its certainly not politically possible.

I disagree with Truism 6. It fails to account for new tech and fails to recognize that currently we do not have the technology to reduce our carbon emmissions by 97%. In all likelyhood advances in technology will reduce the cost of solving the problem from the present cost.

I guess my conclusion wasn't well stated. My opinion is that we should not spend money reducing Carbon Emissions when we know that isn't a possible solution either politically or technically. Instead we should focus dollars on finding geo-engineering solutions that allow us to emit carbon at our current rate while reducing global warming. To do anything else seems like paddling upstream. You will never change China and India's C02 emmissions therefore you will never be able to effectively reduce global C02 emmissions. Spending money chasing after C02 emmissions is throwing it away.

As a society we will never sacrifice the present for the future so all solutions need to be framed around that fundemental fact.

[GreenLantern]

Climate models are so intricate it really is impossible to accurately predict anything long term. They can approximate, but people take models as the gospel and that is where this argument starts to turn ugly. Models are a representation of real life, they are not fact. When you hear anything related to climate or global warming predictions please just remember this one very true and very useful statement:

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

[photon]

Originally Posted by transplant99

What degeree is pretty important though when deciding to implement changes that could quite literally, affect millions of peoples ability to make a living/support their families. Not sure why that wouldn't be just as important facet of this debate as anything else.

And it is something that there is a lot of discussion on. This is from the previous IPCC report (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_...n/faq-2-1.html)



The upcoming report will have more up to date info.

Originally Posted by transplant99

It has done so just in my lifetime as a matter of fact. So to what degree do we "tip the apple cart" chasing down a solutiuon that will never work to the degree we wish because of the cycle of warming/cooling the planet has always experienced?

Very true, but it seems to be that the current trend has very little other source than our activities. We're taking millions and millions of years worth of biomass that has covered the earth and locked up chemicals over all that time and area and re-releasing that in the span of centuries.

The current trend is matches the predictions of doing that, and there are no other explanations for a natural process that can explain the current trend.

[Tinordi]

Ok... yes models are wrong. Does that negate the basic science of a warming earth? No. Just more obfuscation. The IPCC though did update their models and demonstrated that there's considerable uncertainty on the short term impacts of a warming climate. Does this reduce the need for action? Not at all.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Of course...why would I not?Sorry to rain on your parade of condecension.I have little doubt that man has contributed to some degree. What degeree is pretty important though when deciding to implement changes that could quite literally, affect millions of peoples ability to make a living/support their families. Not sure why that wouldn't be just as important facet of this debate as anything else.

Again, and this is where i have no idea, the earth has for its entire existance warmed and cooled. Undeniable fact. It has done so just in my lifetime as a matter of fact. So to what degree do we "tip the apple cart" chasing down a solutiuon that will never work to the degree we wish because of the cycle of warming/cooling the planet has always experienced?

There are valid points on both sides of this thing...and extremists as well, which are illustrated in this very thread alone.

It's odd you say we don't know what proportion of the problem is due to man's impact. The scientific community has been predicting exactly that for years - that's what this whole debate is about.