Is global warming just another ‘End-of-the-World’ delusion?

[mzungu]

Sorry mate, but I think the data says the WORLD is overpopulated. Every resource is stretched, every ecosystem is shrinking, fisheries are dying, several nations are on the verge of freshwater wars, over half the world's rivers no longer reach their oceans, soil is blowing away, the climate is changing, etc.

Having said that, if we educated every woman on the planet and provided good nutrition and clean water and all basic human needs, and access to free family planning, then overpopulation will solve itself. I've read that this could be done with 5% of the world's military budget, but sorry, I don't have a link to that claim. If we empower women and give them and their children the basic human needs, population goes down, not up. It's called the Demographic Transition. So I don't campaign for population control but for education of muslim women and freshwater and human dignity and some security in old age. This stops them viewing many children as a 'superannuation' strategy for retirement and old age.

'Overpopulation' is a moving target. It changes according to the famous formulae IPAT. IMPACT = Population * Affluence (Consumption) * Technology.
The world is currently overpopulated not because we have too many people, but because we have too much impact per person through over-consumption because of the wrong technologies. There are some VASTLY better technologies that could halve or quarter our impact, bringing us back down to 'one planet living' which is the term for being in balance with nature. Ecosystems and soil and fisheries and rivers and forests could start to recover.
See more here
Reduce population growth | Eclipse Now

The REAL issue in this thread, of course, is climate change. Why do you not believe Co2 is changing the climate?

Also that by rising the standard of living; People have less children! Let us make this a civilised planet for once and spend money not on wars but on the things that make life better and also spend money on things that increase our knowledge!

 

[eclipsenow]

Also that by rising the standard of living; People have less children! Let us make this a civilised planet for once and spend money not on wars but on the things that make life better and also spend money on things that increase our knowledge!

I'm with you on that one!

 

[RickG]

I'm with you on that one!

Me too!

 

[eclipsenow]

Hi RickG,
I think I remember from previous posts that you're a bit more technically informed than I am. I just wanted to share a video that helped me, as a non-technical science reader (limited to the Executive Summaries) to actually visually see how Co2 traps heat. You might find it useful to share around.

It's a short youtube video that shows how candle light can penetrate a tube filled with Co2 but the same candle's *heat* cannot. The demonstration starts at 90 seconds in but the whole video itself is well worth watching.

This Year's Model - YouTube

 

[RickG]

Hi RickG,
I think I remember from previous posts that you're a bit more technically informed than I am. I just wanted to share a video that helped me, as a non-technical science reader (limited to the Executive Summaries) to actually visually see how Co2 traps heat. You might find it useful to share around.

It's a short youtube video that shows how candle light can penetrate a tube filled with Co2 but the same candle's *heat* cannot. The demonstration starts at 90 seconds in but the whole video itself is well worth watching.

This Year's Model - YouTube

Indeed, an excellent video. One thing that caught my attention was the robustness of climate models. They really are much more accurate than the denialotrogs would have us believe. I have engaged in several arguments over James Hansen's 3 scenarios presented to Congress in the 1980's. What many people don't understand about a scenario is that it is a "what if" situation. If these conditions occur this may happen or if those conditions that may happen. Hansen gave three scenarios (A,B & C). His scenario B, and the one he called most likely to occur, was pretty much on the mark. However, what is played upon is the sceanrios A and C which were well off the mark. They were off the mark because those conditions did not happen, nor were they really expected to. Had they occurred, they more than likely would have mimiced the model.

 

[eclipsenow]

Indeed, an excellent video. One thing that caught my attention was the robustness of climate models. They really are much more accurate than the denialotrogs would have us believe. I have engaged in several arguments over James Hansen's 3 scenarios presented to Congress in the 1980's. What many people don't understand about a scenario is that it is a "what if" situation. If these conditions occur this may happen or if those conditions that may happen. Hansen gave three scenarios (A,B & C). His scenario B, and the one he called most likely to occur, was pretty much on the mark. However, what is played upon is the sceanrios A and C which were well off the mark. They were off the mark because those conditions did not happen, nor were they really expected to. Had they occurred, they more than likely would have mimiced the model.

I have found, without fail, that Denialists over-state half-truths and ignore the other half of the truth in question. They pick the bit they want (like the temperature changing before the Co2 in the interglacial periods) without presenting the actual climate argument (that climatologists knew that the temperature was changing anyway due to Milankovitch cycles, but that Co2 being trapped by growing ice-sheets or released by thawing ice sheets gave the earth up to 40% more cooling or warming). The way they jumped up and down about Al Gore's rather simplistic presentation of this in Inconvenient Truth at first made me wonder if the whole climate thing was a conspiracy after all. But after investigating it for just a few days, I found the Denialists had dishonestly misrepresented the picture.

Even though I'm not a scientist, I'm quite confident that the peer-reviewed climate science is telling us the true story. We have enough information to sense a clear and present danger; one big enough for governments to actually commit the 'crime' of intervening in the marketplace and actually limit certain forms of dirty energy.

Now, hypothetically speaking, if we woke up one day and the peer-reviewed science had discovered some previously mysterious natural cooling feedback that effectively made global warming 'go away', no one would be more pleased than me. Then we'd 'only' have half a dozen other threats to the survival and prosperity of our civilisation. But until the peer-reviewed science tells us this wonderful news, we would be mad - as in clinically in denial - to act otherwise. Tragically for us, this seems to be the perpetual state of the TEA party extremists in the Republican party.

 

[Subduction Zone]

eclipsenow, the candle demonstration in your video was extremely dramatic. And as a former skeptic what made me change my mind was that like you, I noticed that the deniers used the same debating techniques that many creationists use.

 

[Greatcloud]

Temperatures have remained static if you look at charts that go up to 2013.




CO2

 

[RickG]

Temperatures have remained static if you look at charts that go up to 2013.




CO2

Still can't bring yourself to look at the mainstream science is see. Just for you Greatcloud. The below graph demonstrates your misrepresentation quite "graphically".

And try to remember that climate is a trend over a period of 30 years or more, not a cherry picked high year to a low year.

 

[mzungu]

Still can't bring yourself to look at the mainstream science is see. Just for you Greatcloud. The below graph demonstrates your misrepresentation quite "graphically".

And try to remember that climate is a trend over a period of 30 years or more, not a cherry picked high year to a low year.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I like the blue lines better. They are more comforting.

Look! Forty years of cooling! (Please ignore the steps)

 

[Subduction Zone]

Oops, when I edited the above post somehow this site reposted the original without the graph.


I still find the blue lines more comforting.

Aah, ignorance is bliss

 

[RickG]

I like the blue lines better. They are more comforting.

Look! Forty years of cooling! (Please ignore the steps)

Or you could just go from every high point to low point and claim how many years it cooled.

Actually the high points and low points are due to natural variations caused by ENSO, La Nina and volcanic eruptions. The thing to understand with that is that they are oscillations and perturbations, not climate forcings. They come and go but don't figure in with any warming or cooling trend-wise.

 

[mzungu]

Or you could just go from every high point to low point and claim how many years it cooled.

Actually the high points and low points are due to natural variations caused by ENSO, La Nina and volcanic eruptions. The thing to understand with that is that they are oscillations and perturbations, not climate forcings. They come and go but don't figure in with any warming or cooling trend-wise.

As with any dynamic system

 

[eclipsenow]

And the Denialists have no answers, so they simply go away and sulk elsewhere. Until. Until this topic comes up again some where else, and they decide to repeat their absolutely false claims. Then they get refuted by the peer-reviewed science, go away and sulk.... until next time.

I've often what really goes through the mind of a Denialist? Is it something like this next clip about what really goes through the mind of an Arsonist?

("Meet the Pyro" from the free game, Team Fortress 2 — free through Steam.)

Meet the Pyro - YouTube

 

[mzungu]

And the Denialists have no answers, so they simply go away and sulk elsewhere. Until. Until this topic comes up again some where else, and they decide to repeat their absolutely false claims. Then they get refuted by the peer-reviewed science, go away and sulk.... until next time.

I've often what really goes through the mind of a Denialist? Is it something like this next clip about what really goes through the mind of an Arsonist?

("Meet the Pyro" from the free game, Team Fortress 2 — free through Steam.)

Meet the Pyro - YouTube

 

[RickG]

And the Denialists have no answers, so they simply go away and sulk elsewhere. Until. Until this topic comes up again some where else, and they decide to repeat their absolutely false claims. Then they get refuted by the peer-reviewed science, go away and sulk.... until next time.

I've often what really goes through the mind of a Denialist? Is it something like this next clip about what really goes through the mind of an Arsonist?

("Meet the Pyro" from the free game, Team Fortress 2 — free through Steam.)

Meet the Pyro - YouTube

Absolute nail on the head.

It is absolutely mind-boggling how people can be shown where their anti-GW arguments are so flawed and some cases deliberately misrepresented, and still believe them to be true. What sparks this desire for willful ignorance?

 

[SkyWriting]

Absolute nail on the head.

It is absolutely mind-boggling how people can be shown where their anti-GW arguments are so flawed and some cases deliberately misrepresented, and still believe them to be true. What sparks this desire for willful ignorance?

It's the clear false concern for increasing global temperature
hiding a hidden adjenda that includes about a dozen political
or social concerns.

Fear of overpopulation
Fear of other populations
Fear of loss of green space
Fear of industry
Fear of the future
Fear of Climate Evolution

But let me illustrate: Where to you see steady/even temperatures on this graph?

 

[RickG]

But let me illustrate: Where to you see steady/even temperatures on this graph?

It's an exaggerated "Y" axis. What is your point?

(Source: NOAA Paleoclimatology Program - IPCC AR4 2007 Chapter 6 Palaeoclimate Figure 6.10)

Here's something a bit more to scale. BTW notice that the graph represents northern hemisphere temperatures, whereas your graph erroneously claims them to be global. And is there any reason you did not provide a link to your source, a blog spot? People here may be interested in reviewing your source.

 

[CabVet]

It's an exaggerated "Y" axis. What is your point?

He has none, he is just repeating what the pundits say at Fox News.