Another Global Warming thread
 

A new report's out that argues arctic ice levels have risen back to where they were a year ago and on one site it said they are at their highest since 1978 when two news magazines ran stories claiming a new ice age was coming. I'll link the three sites I've looked at in an attempt to avoid bias.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/0...fe-film-at-11/
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/...en_northe.html
http://anhonestclimatedebate.wordpre...el-since-2002/

I know I could just go back and resuscitate a long dead thread on the same subject, but I'd like to hear arguments against this specifically. It's just another issue I've been on the ropes about.

This is basically me trying to eliminate another source of anxiety that I really don't want to worry about if I don't have to.

Here's a page with a couple arguments against I found: http://www.aproundtable.org/tps30info/globalwarmup.html

Don't be silly Bob the Mercenary! Of course there is global warming! It's been totally, obviously, and undeniably there the whole time!

Its simply that in light of recent evidence we're going to need to creatively reinterperet the meaning of "global warming". When we say "global", we actually mean "in some places", and by "warming" we mean "getting colder".

I guess before the mods mistake this for an insult to people who support global warming, I ought to clarify with this new development.

"Global warming" could really be better defined, as Thomas Friedman indicates, as "global weirding." The real impact of global warming isn't solely that temperatures are expected to rise everywhere at every time, though on average, temperatures globally will do just that.

The real definition of global warming involves the percentage of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere. As that percentage is expected to double from ~280 to ~560 parts per million between 1880 and 2050, we have reasonable proof that humanity is, in fact, having a substantial impact on the environment. (We were at 310 parts per million in 1960, now we're at 380, just fyi.)

It's just that "increased carbon dioxide levels" doesn't necessarily translate into "temperatures rising everywhere." In fact, there are several places around the world where global warming is expected to cause average temperatures to drop, due to increased cloud cover. Additionally, global "warming" will arguably have even greater impacts on drought (in some areas) and too much rain (in others.) In that sense, global warming could actually be called "global drying" in some places once arable for farmland (we're looking at you, places the Sahara Desert is expanding into), and "global wetting" in some areas now saturated with too much inclement weather.

Climate change is happening and if we don't do something drastic to curtail our CO2 emissions in the next half century, we're going to be paying a hefty price, and it won't just be in rising sea levels or higher temperatures.

EDIT: Also, I'm generally wary of reports that attempt to deny global warming. Since the vast majority of scientists confess to its existence, and the vast majority of reports denying global warming have an ulterior motive in mind. (Why hello there scientists paid by oil / coal industries!)

EDIT 2: Website for reference: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html

Personally I'm much more worried about this data than I'm worried about arctic ice levels. Much more worried.

It has seemed to me for a while now that global warming is, really, more contrast in weather. Hotter summer, colder winters, even more rain in already rain-heavy places and even less rain in already dry places. Am I wrong? Because this is what it seems to be turning into.

I don't know, I hear a lot of ulterior motives coming from the other POV too. Like using it as an excuse to create carbon taxes and raise other taxes.

This is a fairly accurate generalization, though certain regions of the world have been hit harder than others, and some will actually experience cooler summers due to increased cloud cover. Some will also be hotter year-round.

I like Friedman's redefinition of global warming as "global weirding" because the most accurate way to sum up the increase in carbon dioxide and other gases is, well, that its effects around the world are just going to be bonkers. While the average temperatures will generally be expected to rise worldwide, certain regions are going to experience droughts, others floods, others will actually cool down, and we can't even possibly fathom exactly how it's going to play out.

However, perhaps the most intriguing argument I've heard from Friedman goes something like this: climate-change skeptics should understand that whether or not global warming is happening doesn't impact the necessity for a change in our energy policies. A lot of climate-change skeptics seem to believe that if any evidence can be posited by which global warming is "debunked," this should allow us to essentially continue with the status quo in terms of our energy consumption. For practical reasons not the least bit related to global warming, we can't indulge in that thought process. We need to end our addiction to foreign oil because it's propping up petrodictatorships in the Middle East who can prop up unstable societies due to an influx of cash that benefits a tiny minority of elites and prevents the rise of democracies. We need to end our consumption of fossil fuel energy and develop other sustainable fuel sources because our access to oil and coal is dwindling by the day and we simply can't continue our current rates of energy consumption very long. Finally, as developing nations increasingly elevate themselves out of poverty, peoples in countries like China and India are going to adapt western standards of energy consumption, leading to even greater supply/demand issues. And then three billion more people are going to be born in the next fifty or so years, good luck telling them they don't deserve access to dwindling oil and coal reserves.

In short? The whole debate regarding global warming is borderline useless because whether or not global warming "exists" doesn't even matter. (I personally believe it does, which only exacerbates my interest in promoting renewable energy solutions.) America has to promote alternative, renewable energy options and we're going to have to invest considerable resources into these projects because if we don't we're going to be screwed. Worst case scenario is we've screwed over the entire planet. Best case scenario? Well, if "global warming" is a farce we'll just be living in increasingly polluted cities until we run out of fossil fuel energy to consume, at which point only a select few will have access to underdeveloped renewable energy resources. Oh, and the petrodictatorships we'll have propped up might send our money to more terrorists and easy access to oil revenue might promote more unstable regimes where substate agencies like Al Qaeda can prosper. Oh, and massive overpopulation will lead to exorbitant competition for limited energy resources, and without renewable sources of energy less and less people will have access to electricity, automotive transport and other essentials in the information technology era.

Sounds like fun!

Forgive my ranting, I'm just an aspiring environmental lawyer with his own vested interest in ensuring I have a job once I graduate from law school!

There's plenty more evidence, at least among objective(ie, not politically inclined) science, that carbon dioxide levels naturally fluctuate, and that the warming trend is correlated with a solar cycle.

There's plenty of allegations that these scientists are paid by big oil, but there's no evidence of that. If it's true, it would mean our oil industry, which is and has been in a political stranglehold for years, has somehow managed to cover up every last scientist they bribed with zero leaks all this time. And considering how much doing business costs them, and how little capacity they have to expand their business, thanks to psuedo-environmentalism, that is extremely unlikely. Not impossible, but I would doubt it w/o insurmountable evidence.

So, let me get this straight.

According to you:

1: When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote their Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, in which the majority of the world's leading scientists concluded that there was over a 90% chance that human activities in the past fifty years directly contributed to a rise in carbon dioxide levels and will contribute to severe climactic change, this panel was politically biased?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fo...essment_Report

I mean because I don't think some crazy democrats or kooky environmentalists have the funds available to buy off the vast majority of the scientists studying the Earth's climate. I mean the Republican Energy Secretary of George W. Bush's administration responded to this report with this comment:

This is George W. Bush's energy secretary, just for the record. I do not think that George W. Bush was in on this massive scam of the world to believe in illegitimate science.

2: I'm just curious: exactly what do climate change skeptics believe happens to all the carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions from our automobiles? Our electronic appliances? Our factories? I mean science 101 -- we're talking basic chemistry here -- says that the byproducts of the production of energy can't simply disappear. It's not as if carbon dioxide from manmade sources is going to float up into the sky and never interact with anything. Maybe all our emissions just gets sucked up into a parallel dimension so no effect whatsoever is felt on this world? I mean I think the far safer bet is when human society suddenly decides to operate millions of automobiles and thousands of fossil fuel burning plants it's going to affect the environmental paradigm in some way. The alternative is simply happily believing that human beings have no effect whatsoever on the weather, which strikes me as ludicrous.

I mean so much of your argument also boils down to "oil companies don't have the resources to buy off scientists," to which I'd retort: how the hell could pseudo-environmentalists buy off the majority of scientists and their institutions?

Here comes Wikipedia with another quote:

I mean are these organizations a part of your overwhelming "objective scientific consensus" that global warming is an absolute farce? If not, what makes them biased? Has the Sierra Club corrupted these institutions with the foul stench of giving a damn about environmental consequences for human activities?

You used wikipedia, which is a terrible source of information, especially on political issues. I'm afraid that is not something I can take seriously. Neither can I take anything the Bush Administration said seriously. Now I'm not a liberal, but the Bush Administration is not a reputable source for anything.

Also I did not say warming is a farce, the warming itself is not. It's the conclusion that you can't question it being man made that is, as there are mountains of evidence that bring it into question.

I understand that either way we need to change our policy to depend less on foreign oil and such, but it seems like people are pushing this issue more for personal gain than any care they have for the environment itself. At least to me. Climate change skeptics don't disagree with the facts, just the motives behind gathering them.

Believe me, discussions with you, Solid, always garner huge wisdom experience points for me. But, the arguments against don't come down to "no you idiot, it's colder here than last year". I'm just saying that if this is in fact being overhyped, there is plenty to be gained from that.