Kyoto is awesome

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by White Doors

It doesn't even look like Humans are causing global warming, so why worry about that?

Is that so?

The Union of Concerned Scientists begs to differ:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming...gerprints.html

By matching the observed and modeled patterns, scientists can now positively identify the "human fingerprints" associated with the changes. The fingerprints that humans have left on Earth's climate are turning up in a diverse range of records and can be seen in the ocean, in the atmosphere, and at the surface.
...
The identification of humans as the main driver of global warming helps us understand how and why our climate is changing, and it clearly defines the problem as one that is within our power to address.
...
with aggressive emission reductions as well as flexibility in adapting to those changes we cannot avoid, we have a small window in which to avoid truly dangerous warming and provide future generations with a sustainable world.

But in case you think "scientists" are a biased interest group, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that

we are seeing global warming caused by human activities and there are growing fears of feedbacks that will accelerate this warming.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...limate-change/

There are literally dozens of others, but I won't bore you. You might start with the National Academy of Sciences' report to the Bush administration on this issue, which pretty much directly contradicts what you just said. The fact is, there's a broad scientific consensus on this point. Are there cranks who are producing junk science on the other side of this issue? Of course.

There are also "scientists" who believe in creationism--and there have been "scientists" who believe that the earth is flat. Now is NOT the time to stick our heads in the sand on this issue, because it's not yet too late to create meaningful change.

As it happens, I agree with some who've said that nuclear power is probably the answer, at least in the short term. That makes me a bad environmentalist, I'm told. I'm no expert--and I realize that this merely substitutes one problem for another. But warming and greenhouse gases is a much more urgent problem right now--and we need an efficient power source that can be implemented quickly.

[Hakan]

Don't confuse people like White Doors and Tranny with facts.

[Hakan]

IIRC Canada was not allowed to include our forests as a carbon sink and Russia was. Makes sense eh?

No you did not remeber correctly. False.

Russia fell under their Kyoto commitments because they used 1990 as their baseline. In 1991 there was an economic collapse in Russia that the Weimar Republic would have been proud of.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I don't want to get in the middle of anything here but the suggestion of "well why don't you come up with something if you know it's not perfect" is very unrealistic.

How? I'm not asking for a whole dissertation, I'm just asking for one way (or more, if they exist) to improve on it.

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I don't like the accord either (it's too wimpy) but it's all we have. It's a start. It's weak, imperfect and it's ultimate goals are probably not going to be met, but it's a start. It's all we've got. Conjuring up another agreement that 160 countries are going to agree on is going to take another 10 years and another 10 after that to get the thing working. From what I've read, we don't have that kind of time.

I'll help you out. You would improve on Kyoto by making it less wimpy. How easy was that? I'd prefer that it'd be a little more fleshed out.. like making the penalties worse or making the gov'ts/companies more accountable.. but at least "making it less wimpy" is something.

Saying "it's the best we have" is a serious cop-out.

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Shouldn't we at least try to slow things down (actually try instead of commissioning another study and then another study and then another study and then making a bumper sticker) and change the "how we try" as time goes by. Use the one thing we've got until we come up with something better? It's a start. Don't we need a start?

It all depends on what that start is. A $12 billion over 7 years start is not the way to go.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Is that so?

The Union of Concerned Scientists begs to differ:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming...gerprints.html

And these Climatoligists differ back (there is no 'consensus')
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=4

MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”
To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.



But in case you think "scientists" are a biased interest group, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...limate-change/

There are literally dozens of others, but I won't bore you. You might start with the National Academy of Sciences' report to the Bush administration on this issue, which pretty much directly contradicts what you just said. The fact is, there's a broad scientific consensus on this point. Are there cranks who are producing junk science on the other side of this issue? Of course.

I wouldn't call current and former climatoligists idea's 'junk science'


MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.
The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.
There are also "scientists" who believe in creationism--and there have been "scientists" who believe that the earth is flat. Now is NOT the time to stick our heads in the sand on this issue, because it's not yet too late to create meaningful change.

As it happens, I agree with some who've said that nuclear power is probably the answer, at least in the short term. That makes me a bad environmentalist, I'm told. I'm no expert--and I realize that this merely substitutes one problem for another. But warming and greenhouse gases is a much more urgent problem right now--and we need an efficient power source that can be implemented quickly.

I don't mind nuclear, but it is going to have to be a combination of alot of different energy sources to cut down on pullution.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Don't confuse people like White Doors and Tranny with facts.

Nice Drive by - this is for you:

Albert Einstein once said of science, "In the realm of the seekers of the truth, there is no human authority. Whoever attempts to play the magistrate there founders on the laughter of the gods."
Canadians must hold extremists to account, and ask why they seek to play magistrate, and exclude legitimate climate scientists from the debate. Do they consider themselves gods? Or is it just that their stance is so weak they fear a truly open discussion?

Tim Ball is a Victoria-based environmental consultant. He was the first climatology PhD in Canada and worked as a professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg for 28 years

[White Doors]

Another theory:

Solar Activity Most Likely The Principal Driver Of Climate Change

Celestial Climate Driver: A Perspective From Four Billion Years Of The Carbon Cycle

GEOSCIENCE CANADA, March 2005, Volume 32, Number 1 pp.13-30

by Jan Veizer veizer@science.uottawa.ca.

Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, K1N 6N5 Canada & Institut fuer Geologie, Mineralogie und Geophysik, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, Bochum, Germany.

As if to reinforce the concept of natural causes for climate change, an important article was published in GSA TODAY of July 2003 by Dr Jàn Veizer of the University of Ottawa. It deals with cloud formation through charged nuclei provided by cosmic ray flux, which itself is subject to variation in the sun’s magnetic field.
A later article: “Celestial Climate Driver: A Perspective From Four Billion Years Of The Carbon Cycle” - SOLAR ACTIVITY MOST LIKELY THE PRINCIPAL DRIVER OF CLIMATE CHANGE was published in March 2005 in GEOSCIENCE CANADA.

Point being - there is no consensus that the current warming of temparatures are human caused AT ALL.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by Hakan

No you did not remeber correctly. False.

Russia fell under their Kyoto commitments because they used 1990 as their baseline. In 1991 there was an economic collapse in Russia that the Weimar Republic would have been proud of.

Think again fact-man:

For Canada, the most significant agreement reached in Bonn relates to the treatment of carbon sinks, particularly forests and agricultural land. Article 3.3 of the Kyoto Protocol allows credit to be given for only a limited range of forestry and agricultural practices. For example, it specifies that credits will be given for afforestation and reforestation only (defined as planting trees where there is no forest).

I'll dumb it down for ya: Canada get's ZERO recognition for having the largest boreal forest in the world.

[Red Mile Style]

Originally Posted by White Doors

Nice Drive by - this is for you:

Albert Einstein once said of science, "In the realm of the seekers of the truth, there is no human authority. Whoever attempts to play the magistrate there founders on the laughter of the gods."
Canadians must hold extremists to account, and ask why they seek to play magistrate, and exclude legitimate climate scientists from the debate. Do they consider themselves gods? Or is it just that their stance is so weak they fear a truly open discussion?

Tim Ball is a Victoria-based environmental consultant. He was the first climatology PhD in Canada and worked as a professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg for 28 years

People are already latently playing God by not doing anything about climate change and continuing to contribute through the burning of fossil fuels. Why should those who are conservative thinkers determine what the rest of the world should be like?

I've heard the scientific reasoning behind the argument that climate change is naturally occuring, why is it then, after the September 11th attacks when all flights were grounded, the temperature of the Earth cooled, and then spiked again once they resumed?

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by Red Mile Style

People are already latently playing God by not doing anything about climate change and continuing to contribute through the burning of fossil fuels. Why should those who are conservative thinkers determine what the rest of the world should be like?

I've heard the scientific reasoning behind the argument that climate change is naturally occuring, why is it then, after the September 11th attacks when all flights were grounded, the temperature of the Earth cooled, and then spiked again once they resumed?

Do to there formation of clouds that they planes make.

[Hakan]

What does this prove about Russia? Nothing.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Red Mile Style

I've heard the scientific reasoning behind the argument that climate change is naturally occuring, why is it then, after the September 11th attacks when all flights were grounded, the temperature of the Earth cooled, and then spiked again once they resumed?

That's a huge sample to go on. A whole what... 3 days?

Why do we have snow in May / July for a week? It must be the Earth cooling!

[White Doors]

I've heard the scientific reasoning behind the argument that climate change is naturally occuring, why is it then, after the September 11th attacks when all flights were grounded, the temperature of the Earth cooled, and then spiked again once they resumed?

AHHHHH HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

thanks man - that made my day!!

LOL!!!

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Red Mile Style

People are already latently playing God by not doing anything about climate change and continuing to contribute through the burning of fossil fuels. Why should those who are conservative thinkers determine what the rest of the world should be like?

I've heard the scientific reasoning behind the argument that climate change is naturally occuring, why is it then, after the September 11th attacks when all flights were grounded, the temperature of the Earth cooled, and then spiked again once they resumed?

Whoa. Did not know that.

You have a link?

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by White Doors

Point being - there is no consensus that the current warming of temparatures are human caused AT ALL.

OK--this is my second try at a response--I had a slight problem with the browser crashing a while ago.

"Consensus" implies that most scientists believe that global warming is happening, at least in part from human causes. Is it your contention that MOST climate scientists do NOT believe those things to be true? Really?!?!? And do you seriously think that a single article in a minor Canadian journal, whose topic is a single data set, can effectively dispute this?

At any rate--I spent some time at the "Friends of Science" website that you linked above. As you might predict, I was less than impressed. For one thing, it's important to look at the whole picture when evaluating academic discourse. Anybody can have a website. When you're looking at a website, you should look for some clues to its validity--beyond merely trotting out the credentials of their members. Creationists have numerous PhDs that they trot out in their websites and for public appearances. That doesn't make them right. Nonetheless, even you would have to admit that the motley collection of retired engineers and aging professor emeriti is a pretty far cry from a significant sample of climate scientists.

One simple clue to the fact that this is a single-issue fringe website is in its mission statement. If you click the "about us" link, you'll learn that

[Friends of Science] offer critical evidence that challenges the premises of the Kyoto Protocol and present alternative causes for climate change.

As you see, "Friends of Science" are not really "friends of science" at all. They (gasp) have an agenda, which they are good enough to reveal to us in their own mission statement. Add to that a quick google.scholar search of the so-called "scientists" that they have collected onto their advisory board.

Let's start with Dr. Tim Ball. The bio on the "friends of science" website refers to him as a "retired" professor--never mentioning that he left the University of Winnipeg in 1996 to become a hired gun for the National Centre for Public Policy Research--a notorious conservative think tank.http://www.nationalcenter.org/

A quick search of Dr. Ball's career yields many letters to the editor and policy papers drafted for think tanks and published on their websites. Publications in refereed journals? Those pickings are rather slim. It appears that "Dr." Tim Ball's real academic career ended some time ago. Now--do you thing that may be because he's a fringe scientist?

The story on Sallie Baliunas isn't much better. She's an astronomer, not a climate scientist, first of all--and is another notorious proxy for right wing think tanks. She has one paper on the subject, which was widely panned, leading to the National Academy of Sciences to conclude (as noted in a NY Times article on the subject, that

the Soon-Baliunas paper, published in the journal Climate Research this year, has been heavily criticized by many scientists, including several of the journal editors.
The editors said last week that whether or not the conclusions were correct, the analysis was deeply flawed.

One refereed publication, and even the journal editors are disavowing it.

The "Friends of Science" aren't looking so friendly, suddenly.

I could go on--but instead, let me exhort you to try an experiment. From now on, instead of using Google to search for articles on Climate Change, use "Google Scholar." That will weed out the websites that aren't refereed and don't present real research. You might find that to be a schocking discovery. What you'll find is that there is indeed debate on the topic of global warming: but the debate is about how fast it's happening, not about whether humans are causing it (there are a range of factors but the consensus is that since 1949 human factors are a major contributor) or whether it's happening at all.

Also, look at it this way: many of the scientists who now say "global climate change is happening, but it's not bad, and we're not the cause" are the same ones who 10 years ago were saying "global warming is a myth." Don't be duped by fakers--if you limit your reading to real, reputable journals--I'm talking Science and Nature and their ilk--you'll see that the facts tell a different story than you have so far.

[White Doors]

I'll check it out.

Is it your contention that MOST climate scientists do NOT believe those things to be true? Really?!?!?

No my contention was debunking the statement that ALMOST ALL scientists believe in the human causes of global warming. That is quite different.

[Bobblehead]

Good post Iowa_Flames_Fan

I had never heard of Google Scholar - Google is amazing.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by White Doors

I'll check it out.



No my contention was debunking the statement that ALMOST ALL scientists believe in the human causes of global warming. That is quite different.

So i tried it: the first one that popped up was:

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu...ndRobinson.pdf

LOL.

I STILL contend that there is NOT a scientific consensus on human caused global warming.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by White Doors

So i tried it: the first one that popped up was:

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu...ndRobinson.pdf

LOL.

I STILL contend that there is NOT a scientific consensus on human caused global warming.

Well, it's at least better than "Friends of Science." But you'll note that the "refereed scientific journal" that published this finding is The Wall Street Journal. The article is also nearly 10 years old.

Also, this article doesn't say we're not causing global warming. It says that global warming is a "myth." Remember how I said that the fringe scientists who now say global warming isn't bad, and isn't our fault were saying it was a myth 10 years ago?

What you WILL find is debate--which is healthy--but I've yet to see anything that indicates that the legions of scientists publishing in major journals are all just wrong about this topic.

Your implication seems to be that all of those scientists, in cahoots with the left, are using exaggerations and alarmist scenarios to frighten us. Almost sounds like a conspiracy theory, no?

[White Doors]

Your implication seems to be that all of those scientists, in cahoots with the left, are using exaggerations and alarmist scenarios to frighten us. Almost sounds like a conspiracy theory, no?

No, that's not my contention at all. I just think that they are wrong. I think we have warmed up some, but I don't necessarily think that that will continue to warm up.