Eco Worriers: “CO2 is a pollutant!” Gaia: “Tell that to the biosphere.” Biosphere: “Yumm, burp!”
The SeaWiFS instrument aboard the Seastar satellite has been collecting ocean data since 1997. By monitoring the color of reflected light via satellite, scientists can determine how successfully plant life is photosynthesizing. A measurement of photosynthesis is essentially a measurement of successful growth, and growth means successful use of ambient carbon. This animation shows an average of 10 years worth of SeaWiFS data. Dark blue represents warmer areas where there tends to be a lack of nutrients, and greens and reds represent cooler nutrient-rich areas which support life. The nutrient-rich areas include coastal regions where cold water rises from the sea floor bringing nutrients along and areas at the mouths of rivers where the rivers have brought nutrients into the ocean from the land.
See an animation of the Earth;s Biosphere: 512×288 (30 fps) MPEG-1 10 MB. More here at NASA SVS
With less heat and less carbon dioxide, the planet could become less hospitable and less green
Lawrence Solomon
Financial Post, Don Mills, Ontario
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Planet Earth is on a roll! GPP is way up. NPP is way up. To the surprise of those who have been bearish on the planet, the data shows global production has been steadily climbing to record levels, ones not seen since these measurements began.
GPP is Gross Primary Production, a measure of the daily output of the global biosphere –the amount of new plant matter on land. NPP is Net Primary Production, an annual tally of the globe’s production. Biomass is booming. The planet is the greenest it’s been in decades, perhaps in centuries.
Until the 1980s, ecologists had no way to systematically track growth in plant matter in every corner of the Earth — the best they could do was analyze small plots of one-tenth of a hectare or less. The notion of continuously tracking global production to discover the true state of the globe’s biota was not even considered.
Then, in the 1980s, ecologists realized that satellites could track production, and enlisted NASA to collect the data. For the first time, ecologists did not need to rely on rough estimates or anecdotal evidence of the health of the ecology: They could objectively measure the land’s output and soon did — on a daily basis and down to the last kilometer.
The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA satellite data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth’s vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometres — enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year.
Why the increase? Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the planet and the presence of CO2, a gas indispensable to plant life. CO2 is nature’s fertilizer, bathing the biota with its life-giving nutrients. Plants take the carbon from CO2 to bulk themselves up — carbon is the building block of life — and release the oxygen, which along with the plants, then sustain animal life. As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: “Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century.”
From the 2004 abstract: Our results indicate that global changes in climate have eased several critical climatic constraints to plant growth, such that net primary production increased 6% (3.4 petagrams of carbon over 18 years) globally. The largest increase was in tropical ecosystems. Amazon rain forests accounted for 42% of the global increase in net primary production, owing mainly to decreased cloud cover and the resulting increase in solar radiation.
Lush as the planet may now be, it is as nothing compared to earlier times, when levels of CO2 and Earth temperatures were far higher. In the age of the dinosaur, for example, CO2 levels may have been five to 10 times higher than today, spurring a luxuriantly fertile planet whose plant life sated the immense animals of that era. Planet Earth is also much cooler today than during the hothouse era of the dinosaur, and cooler than it was 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warming Period, when the Vikings colonized a verdant Greenland. Greenland lost its colonies and its farmland during the Little Ice Age that followed, and only recently started to become green again.
This blossoming Earth could now be in jeopardy, for reasons both natural and man-made. According to a growing number of scientists, the period of global warming that we have experienced over the past few centuries as Earth climbed out of the Little Ice Age is about to end. The oceans, which have been releasing their vast store of carbon dioxide as the planet has warmed — CO2 is released from oceans as they warm and dissolves in them when they cool — will start to take the carbon dioxide back. With less heat and less carbon dioxide, the planet could become less hospitable and less green, especially in areas such as Canada’s Boreal forests, which have been major beneficiaries of the increase in GPP and NPP.
Doubling the jeopardy for Earth is man. Unlike the many scientists who welcome CO2 for its benefits, many other scientists and most governments believe carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant that must be removed from the atmosphere at all costs. Governments around the world are now enacting massive programs in an effort to remove as much as 80% of the carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.
If these governments are right, they will have done us all a service. If they are wrong, the service could be all ill, with food production dropping world wide, and the countless ecological niches on which living creatures depend stressed. The second order effects could be dire, too. To bolster food production, humans will likely turn to energy intensive manufactured fertilizers, depleting our store of non-renewable resources. Techniques to remove carbon from the atmosphere also sound alarms. Carbon sequestration, a darling of many who would mitigate climate change, could become a top inducer of earthquakes, according to Christian Klose, a geohazards researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Because the carbon sequestration schemes tend to be located near cities, he notes, carbon-sequestration-caused earthquakes could exact an unusually high toll.
Amazingly, although the risks of action are arguably at least as real as the risks of inaction, Canada and other countries are rushing into Earth-altering carbon schemes with nary a doubt. Environmentalists, who ordinarily would demand a full-fledged environmental assessment before a highway or a power plant can be built, are silent on the need to question proponents or examine alternatives.
Earth is on a roll. Governments are too. We will know soon enough if we’re rolled off a cliff.
Sponsored IT training links:
Testking offers100% pass guarantee for 70-401 exam. Download 74-404 practice questions that will prepare you for 70-177 exam within days.
Picked this up in ICECAP and posted it in a couple places already this morning, Anthony, being absolutely delighted both by its content and its inspiring message. Earth, you are beautiful, and just so much bigger than any wishful doomsayer.
Good to see this posted here. You realize that this is the type of story liable to give an AGW True Believer a hissy fit ~ a coal-fired electric power plant turns out to be green!
Found this yesterday at Canada’s National Post. Lawrence Solomon is former warmer and a long time environmental advocate who parted ways with the AGW crowd a few years ago when he began a series of stories based on interviews with climate skeptics. The series is entitled “The Deniers” – the same name as his nonfiction book released this year.
His work needs more exposure outside of Canada. Thanks Anthony.
Anybody in this crowd recall from your days in elementary school, the “Weekly Reader”? I wonder if an article like this would make their pages.
Poking around their site, it didn’t take but seconds to find this…
http://www.weeklyreader.com/featurezone/global_warming.asp
Meanwhile, “global cooling” claims it first verified Polar Bear victim.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/06/06/science/060708-Sciencepix_7.html
I’ve been kind of boggled that the “CO2 as pollutant” meme is not only still around, but has gained significant traction. When I first reviewed the subject in the 90s, it was abundantly clear that plant food (i.e. CO2) was a boon and not a burden except at absurdly high levels.
There are real pollutants, CO2 isn’t one of them, and trying to reduce available plant food is beyond insane, especially given the likely costs.
I normally just read instead of comment here, but I guess I’m on a roll tonight. 🙂
I am a bit confused having read the post the other day that the CO2 measurements that suggested the Earth has gone from 280 to 380 ppm since the industrial age began was based on a false understanding of the processes involved in extracting ice core information.
So what do I trhink now?
the satellite data suggests more growth due to warming (oceans release more CO2) and more warming as a consequence.
Does this evidence of more growth not suggest a warmer Earth and more CO2? Is this not evidence of a Global Warming?
Or am I missing something?
I’m convinced carbon dioxide is not bad for the environment. However I find little reason to believe that the increase we’ve seen in CO2 levels are due to oceans warming up. The measured CO2 from Manua Loa and other places increase out of step with measured ocean temperatures. I am aware of the efforts of Jaworowski and others to reconcile earlier measurements with current records but simply from looking at the behaviour of the curves, Jaworowski’s hypothesis seem improbable. Thus “The oceans, which have been releasing their vast store of carbon dioxide as the planet has warmed — CO2 is released from oceans as they warm and dissolves in them when they cool — will start to take the carbon dioxide back.” is most likely misleading: CO2 levels will not decrease rapidly because oceans cool even if they indeed would cool (which we haven’t seen much of so far). If we stop emitting CO2, levels will decrease with an e-fold time around 40 years; not because oceans cool but because that is the uptake ratio of excess CO2 that we have seen in the 20th century.
This is a positive effect found in almost every biological feedback system today, but it won’t last, and is fragile. Triggering such an effect is almost certain indication of a failure in the first place.
Think of it as a helicopter buffer – when helicopters come to land they exert a downwards force which buffers the landing. No matter how fast your rotate the blades, no amount of buffer will soften a landing if you’re a falling as a fast as a brick.
If we are cooling long term CO2 will be critical to warm and feed the humans living on the margin. I don’t think CO2 has much warming effect, but it does have a strong fertilizing effect. With any luck by the time we start warming again we will have figured out the real climate sensitivity to CO2 and can regulate it if necessary.
I’ve seen more and more a consciousness that carbon encumbering in any form will be devastating to the poor of the earth. The ethics of this whole mess is gradually turning to compassion for the humans on this sphere, particularly now that saving the earth from CO2 inferno seems to be becoming unnecessary.
Soon, it will be a fair question to ask what is the motivation of those clinging to the carbon paradigm. It is becoming apparent that saving the earth is not the motive, for those who stick with the AGW illusion in the face of science that is debunking it.
How about Al Gore and his claim of $150,000,000 donated to his ad campaign from internet and ‘anonymous’ sources? Why would a source want to keep its donation secret if it was participating in saving the earth?
===========================================
What’s good for the earth is not necessary good for humans.
[…] wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com Tags: carbon, carbon dioxide, co2, Earth Related Posts […]
Just an FYI, the premise that the so-called “AGW crowd” somehow advocates eliminating all CO2 from the atmosphere is patently false. With exceptions, most AGW proponents who urge cutting back on CO2 emissions understand the virtual impossibility of cutting emissions back to even current day levels. Even the very best IPCC “Emission Scenario” does not feature a 100 year reduction to quite our current levels. My personal opinion is that we should not place an absolute limit on CO2 concentrations, but work to cut down emissions as much as possible and invest in developing future technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, to yet-to-be-determined optimal level for the ecosystem, be it a bit higher or a bit lower than what we have today.
Leon, many of us object to coal power plants because of the coal mining industry. I urge you to visit the coal mines of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia before you continue to make the claim that we should support coal mining. This environmentalist supports nuclear power for a brighter tomorrow.
A question for y’ all:
Who should we listen to?
1. some TV weather presenter with no scientific qualifications?
2. the consensus of every single national science academy of every industrialized country on the planet that confirms the reality of anthropogenic climate change?
Clue: it’s not (1)
Talking of clues – get one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
REPLY: You forgot to add the 32,000 scientists that recently signed the Oregon Petition as choice 3. 🙂
Well now. There’s a surprise. I guess all those greenhouse florists that keep their greenhouses artificially at 1000ppm CO2 aren’t crazy after all.
It’s a shame that the Amazonian Rain Forests are being plowed under (an area the size of Rhode Island/year) to create agricultural land for Ethanol production. This may be the most stupid of many stupid things our current world leadership is allowing/encouraging via misguided energy/environmental policy.
I’m sure this won’t be much play in the media….It’s of course too positive, but
I’m sure Al Gore’s take will be:
of course our super duper computer models predicted this. My scientist friends tell me
global warmingclimate change is just taking a breather , giving these plants time to grow, but rest assured soon the world’s fever will destroy these plants and the rest of “you”, if you don’t send money to my carbon offsetting company soon.Maybe this will help to feed all the people.
You realize that even as the biosphere grows, the world’s biodiversity continues to decline at an alarming rate. Something with unforeseen consequences that could quickly balloon out of control.
I will make my contribution to Earth today, by taking my 5.7L V8 SS Commodore (Aussie V8 sedan) for a drive around town !
São Paulo + 22,0 ºC
François
Congratulations: your work is right.
Anthony: 3.2 mm is soap in the ocean. (foam)
It’s rather ironic isn’t it? The CO2 released by man’s actions and burgeoning population may be exactly what is needed to sustain that population. Now our govt’s are trying to remove it. O.K. Maybe Ironic isn’t the right term.
Hi Anthony!
I have a true believer at my website arguing that you are cherry picking the weather station bias. This fellow tries to claim that just as many stations are display a cooling bias because they are on grassy knolls or by water. I pointed out that this is unlikely to be a major source of error, but this guy persists. Any word from you would be nice.
REPLY Well it is really simple to refute, all of the census of station in the US is available on http://www.surfacestations.org you can see the Excel spreadsheet and details of each station surveyed.
You can see the pictures of all stations surveyed.
The survey has a random component: volunteers that sign up, whom I don’t direct, they choose.
Anyone that thinks there is a directed cherry picking bias is welcome to take that data and prove it.
[…] According to NASA satellite data: Over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth’s vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometres — enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year. […]
This is terrible! CO2 good for something? Blasphemy!
How dare the planet do something like this!
I’m sure, after some ‘adjustment’, they can fix it.
(snicker)
Don’t be too sure that the Carbon Cultists can’t turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear. Algae blooms in the Chesapeake Bay are caused by too many nutrients and cause oxygen starved water and fish kills. There’s going to be someone with a model that says that a similar event is going to be caused by CO2.
Again
http://www.johnsongas.com/industrial/CO2Gen.asp
Get ’em while you can.
Gaia-worshipping AGW idiots should rejoice in the fact that man is helping to add a valuable, life-giving gas to the atmosphere. But of course they won’t, being not only idiots but hypocrites as well. The modern warming has also been a boon to mankind, increasing growing seasons and allowing food to be grown in places where it might be difficult to. “The Earth is burning, and we’re causing it!”, they cry. Er, no, and no. We’ve had a bit of a reprieve during the 20th century (a whopping .6C), and now we’re headed back into an LIA-type cooling. We’ll most definitely be needing any and all C02 we can get then.
How can greens be opposed to green? They’ll find a way, I would bet on it.
When CO2 was first attacked, someone tried to show that benefits to plant life were superficial. That has been refuted lately, but I don’t remember where.
WHAT THE HECK? I thought the US Supreme Court already settled this. CO2 is a pollutant. The only true green is one who refuses to exhale.
How much of that is more CO2 and how much is changing land use? Once people are drawn out of subsistence / slash and burn living and there is more investment and effort in less land with greater production per area, doesn’t that mean more land left to recover and regrow?
Besides, it is heresy to suggest any upside from a known deadly pollutant like CO2. The notion that more industrialization and economic growth could cause less pressure on land and more biomass growth is not permissible.
I mentioned this to a friend who if effect said “Yeah, but the plants have fewer nutrients”. Has anyone else heard this? Any links to data of this sort?
Thank you.
Talking of clues – get one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming,
Except that some clues are better than others and there actually isn’t total concensus. The Wikipedia entry is largely based on NASA figures – here are details of what NASA have been doing with their figures of late:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/goddard_nasa_thermometer/
and to backup the lack of concensus comment:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/
and why one should take all of this with a pinch of salt now that there are numerous agendas including career and political ones’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/15/bbc_global_notwarming_mailbag/
Call me paranoid. Go ahead, but is this AGW thing a deep plot to discredit science? Consider the egg on many faces if the weather continues to not heat up and particularly if it gets colder.
Scientists are known for their objectivity and dispassion but they have to eat like the rest of us. Too bad they apparently let their desire for grant money lead them into a trap.
Strat,
I think they may be referencing studies that show cultivated (as in farm grown) plants have fewer nutrients than the same plants grown in non-farmed soils. I don’t think it has anything to do with this subject though.
MA writes…”Talking of clues – get one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming”
Here’s how the sacrosanct Wiki censors any AGW references that violate the True Faith…
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=440268&p=1
My personal opinion is that we should not place an absolute limit on CO2 concentrations, but work to cut down emissions as much as possible and invest in developing future technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, to yet-to-be-determined optimal level for the ecosystem, be it a bit higher or a bit lower than what we have today.
Utter rubbish, counters. C02 is beneficial – or didn’t you read the article? We need MORE of it, not less. Do try to keep up.
There is empirical fossil evidence that shows poor, delicate Polar Bears have thrived through every climate oscillation since they were a species of Pleistocene Grizzly Bear that migrated to the ancient polar regions and turned white to hunt fat, yummy seals—(and drink colas with the penguins.)
“Yeah, but the plants have fewer nutrients”
Yeah, I don’t think so. Too many things influence nutrient values in plants for that to be a blanket statement.
This is a positive effect found in almost every biological feedback system today, but it won’t last, and is fragile. Triggering such an effect is almost certain indication of a failure in the first place.
How in the world can you know that? Is there some upper limit to the amount of biological matter the world can grow?
It looks to me like plant life adapting to conditions that favor more growth. Is it too much of a good thing? Temperatures aren’t rising, plants are growing more efficiently. This is failure?
Go ahead, but is this AGW thing a deep plot to discredit science?
Somehow, I don’t think it would benefit NASA to discredit science. I think it’s a case of a few folks with an agenda and a bunch of willing idiots.
It’s important to remember that this is only one aspect of global climate change. There may be benefits resulting from increased plant photosynthesis, but the most important issue is how climate change will impact human populations on the whole. The earth is much more populous now than ever before, with 10s or 100s of millions of people who will be in a bad way as sea level rises or precipitation shifts, or the snowpack that formerly fed their rivers vanishes early in the year. The CO2 fertilization effect is useless to the farmer who receives no water. Citizens of first world nations will take advantage of their wealth and technological savvy to pay for adaptation to these changes, but many people who live in poverty now are likely to suffer even more.
I think this has to be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, the world is “greener”. Yes, CO2 has something to do with it. Is it the only thing? More than likely not. Does it have to do with the human race’s maintenance and it’s desire to steward it’s “house” and keep it green. Yep. It’s kind of like the recent temp. drop. While the sun will probably prove out to be a a significant contributor to the drop, it will more than likely not all due to the sun. The system is complex and we are just beginning to understand it. Personally, the only conclusion I’ve come to is CO2 is nowhere close to being the primary driver of the earth’s greenhouse effect and the chance of catastrophic positive feedbacks kicking in is getting more and more remote everyday. When one jumps on a “silver bullet”; s/he usually ends up missing and getting shot instead. Much like what is happening to the AGW catastrophe movement.
Counter: What turns you off so much about the E/K, WV coal plants? Is it the working conditions? Just curious. I don’t know enough about them to have an opinion. Vanouver is a long way away from from there.
Mike, how climate change impacts human populations on the whole is an entirely separate issue. C02’s effect on climate is limited, and man’s contribution of C02 only about 3%, making his effect on climate very small. It is, in fact changes in our sun which have a far greater impact. So, instead of worrying about C02, which has almost no effect on climate anyway, the answer is to adapt.
Oh, and by the way, most of the global warming hysteria about rising sea levels, melting ice caps, droughts, floods, etc. etc. is just plain hype, intended to frighten people into action – action which is as useless as it is stupid and asinine.
Not a usual commenter but am a frequent reader since I found this site. Thanks Anthony for all your hard work. This site is my favorite one to forward to my “greenwashed” friends because of it’s high quality and easy to follow links that allow a person to test for him/her self the truth of the statements.
Just a comment to MA and his/her assertion that we should agree with misguided and politicized “consensus” of the IPCC scientist, who incidently don’t all seem to agree…. My question is what does “consensus” have to do with scientific facts. As we continue to improve our means of science toward understanding our Global Climate, why must we hold on to “theories” that now longer hold up to the facts we are discovering? I mean come on…at one time in our history, the “consensus” of the great minds of the world was that the world was FLAT! Turns out they were wrong too… 🙂
Well, this is loaded forum.
CO2 is certainly beneficial to the plants (any high school kid knows that). It is not per se a pollutant, nor is mercury, crude oil, or radium, except if the localized concentration are above what is found in nature without human intervention. Mercury, extracted from ore and concentrated in fish is a pollutant; crude oil, when it is taken from the ground and spilled on the ocean is a pollutant; and Marie Curie’s lab was polluted with radium that when in the soil is harmless.
As for CO2, it is manifest that higher concentration in the atmosphere modifies the global context in a way that is utterly unpredictable. Plants grow more and faster? Great! But what are the side effects of above normal concentration of it? We have an hint that it drives our planet’s temperature up. That’s a major side effect.
When man plays God, and affects Earth’s future by rapid change in his global environment, he is playing dice. Who needs that?
In response to how the great minds of the world at one time thought the world was flat I find it interesting to look at books about how CO2 is affecting our climate from five or more years ago. Take for instance Robert Watts book on Innovative Energy Strategies for CO2 Stabilization (http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=44107&v=synopsis) its amazing what was thought of as innovative 10 years ago versus what is thought as innovative nowadays.
Regards
Rob
TO: MA
Amongst researchers, you likely are not going to persuade many by quoting Wikipedia. This open web-based fountain of information is full of errors and overwhelming biases. The problem is by no means limited to AGW topics.
As you mention national academies, it probably is worthy of note that the National Academy of Science in the United States essentially refuted a key cornerstone of the Third Assessement Report from the IPCC — Mann’s hockey stick. As you undoubtedly realize, the choices are far more numerous and complicated than the two you mentioned.
TO: counters
I have seen beautiful Appalachian mountain sides (or hill sides) laid waste by coal mining, and and it is easy to find cases where safety and waste concerns were not handled properly. Yet, I have also seen coal fields that were handled and restored in an environmentally-concerned manner. In fact, from an aesthetic point of view, I might take a restored coal field over a vista marred by windmills and ubiquitous powerlines. If the choice was between nuclear and coal, I probably would go along with your conclusion; however, I think the choice we need to choose is both.
Bruce,
I’m not sure why you say our contribution to CO2 is only 3%, given an increase of roughly 100 ppm since preindustrial concentrations of ~280 ppm. I agree that changes in solar radiation are critical for driving the long-timescale climate cycles on earth, but recent anthropogenic increases in gases like CO2, CH4, and N2O are sufficient to cause significant warming now and in the immediate future. The basic physics of this (energy balance, absorption cross-section of the molecules, etc.) is well understood. What is less well understood is how feedbacks in the climate system (e.g. changes in cloud cover) will act to intensify or reduce this warming Current climate models suggest that the result will be net warming, and while you may be skeptical of these models, the fact that the amount of greenhouse gases we have added to the atmosphere is large enough that it can impact the climate system is not a matter of controversy among climate scientists.
Mike Lawler, the things you mention have always happened and will always happen. There’s no evidence of anything catastrophic occurring after 40 years of so-called “unprecedented” warming.
Citizens of first world nations will take advantage of their wealth and technological savvy to pay for adaptation to these changes, but many people who live in poverty now are likely to suffer even more.
Naw: we of the developed nations should instead take our due credit for our heroic contribution to global CO2 fertilization, possibly without which many more of the Earth’s poor would be worse off or not even existing to begin with – while there’s still time, since China and India, etc., are about to steal the glory, while adapting to “change”, and paying for it themselves, according to their own estimation of the ipcc “science” and its disasterizing.
But if you, Mike, wish to make a very personal tithe to the “Green” Church of your choice just to try to make sure your conscience is cleased, you are of course free to do so. Good luck with that tactic as well.
Does it have to do with the human race’s maintenance and it’s desire to steward it’s “house” and keep it green. Yep.
Here’s just a quick link I found from here http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/DanielChen.shtml
I don’t know that it’s definitive, but it’s a start.
The percentages of earth’s land surface can be divided into different types: 20% covered by snow land, 20% mountains, 20% dry land, 30% good land that can be farmed, 10% land doesn’t have topsoil.
If we got a 20% increase, off of less than 30% of our landmass, we humans are really cranking it up, wouldn’t you say?
You have to do something!
Great site! A clearinghouse of up-to-date climate information. As the CO2 steadily increases and the temperature continues in decline, climate change as a function of other causes will become obvious to all. Sure is cold out- check out this link: http://www.komonews.com/news/19657944.html
“You forgot to add the 32,000 scientists that recently signed the Oregon Petition as choice 3.”
You mean the completely debunked list of ‘31,000 scientists’ that has included ‘Geri Halliwell’ (Spice Girls), ‘Perry Mason’ (fictitious detective), ‘Michael J. Fox’ (Back To The Future!) and a bunch of others that show the list up for what it is – unverified bullshit. Anyone can sign the list with any name and qualification they choose – it will get added to the list of ‘scientists’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition
http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/oregon-petition-redux/
REPLY: Sorry, you are wrong. Wrong list. There was an earlier one that was invaded by a handful of bogus names from unscrupulous people seeking to discredit it, but this one is brand new, with stricter controls to keep people with no scruples from putting bogus names on it.
For example, by his own admission, Michael J. Murphy aka Big City Lib lied and connived to get on the list, but failed: http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2008/05/and-i-are-on-that-list.html
The screening process denied him.
BTW Michael J. Fox was indeed a real scientist with the same name, as was Mr. Mason.
Do your homework before making claims.
I think that we should stop call CO2 a greenhouse gas but instead call it a greengrowth gas.
One problem with the green movement and the ecological academic community as a whole is the view that the different ecological niches are always in a delicate balance and any push on it, be it climate change or a change in the chemical balance of the oceans much somehow be catastrophic. In fact nature is quite sturdy and plants and animals can adopt and evolve to survive most changes be it manmade or natural.
It is a hard struggle in the academic environment to get notice and with the desire to achieve something important. The result can be seen all over in the number of scientific studies that are alarming or catastrophic. Naturally no of those academics are ever accountable for the unintentional consequences that may come about as a result of their studies.
For example, Global Warming Hysteria is now leading to increasing poverty, famine and death.
When the world continues to cool, they will switch from global warming to acidification of the oceans. And claim that there will be a rapid dying of plankton, coral reefs and of fish.
Well er: “…there actually isn’t total concensus.”
I’ll repeat myself: every scientific body of national or international standing on the planet accepts and confirms human influence on recent climate change and the likely results of that. How much consensus do you need? The only people who don’t agree are almost entirely right wing, bible belt wing nuts, congregated in the USA.
philw1776: you’re unable to challenge the referenced sources on that Wikipedia page, so you attempt to discredit Wikipedia. Bush has played that type of game for 8 years – most of us are wise to it now.
D. Overcast: “…what does “consensus” have to do with scientific facts.”
If 99 engineers told you a plane was likely to crash and 1 said that it wouldn’t, you’d be pretty dumb to get on it. I suggest you read http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics to help you differentiate ‘fact’ from propaganda and idiocy.
Fortunately, this is rapidly becoming a non-issue. Every industrialized country on the planet accepts the reality of AGW. Obama is very clear on the threat and the urgency with which it needs to be addressed. It is one of his priorities when he becomes president.
All that’s left is a few reality deniers, congregated in dusty corners of the internet, such as this. I guess denial of reality is to help alleviate the guilt of driving those hideous SUVs?
In the hope that some people here might want to educate themselves, instead of relying on the echo chamber of dishonest climate change deniers:
http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11462
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=6229
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2
REPLY: Good use of stereotypes there. No more of calling people dishonest for having an opinion that is different from yours. An apology is warranted.
Sorry, MA, but you’re wrong. Scientific bodies make policy statements based on political decisions. They do not imply that all members of that body agree with the policy statement. How much money do you think a scientific body would get if they said CO2 is no big deal?
Oh please, not this tired old, inappropriate analogy. Airplanes are made by engineers. The climate wasn’t made by humans, and we’re still trying to understand it. Extremely poor analogy.
“Sorry, you are wrong.”
I note that you make no effort to refute the evidence I have provided with evidence of your own. You simply state I’m wrong – not a very convincing rebuttal, but I understand the reason – you have nothing to use as a rebuttal.
Even the blog post you link to makes it clear that there is no verification process for the list – you just write any name, any ‘scientific’ experience and post it back. Also, the ‘new’ list is just the old list at a different URL – how dumb would you need to be to fall for that?
Pathetic.
REPLY: I said do your homework, I’m not going to do it for you. You made the claims first, back them up.
Ah, what the heck, you won’t do it, so here read this one:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/17/32-000-deniers.aspx
And the blog post you referenced, the man who wrote it admits lying to try to get on, then you use his word as a reference? Pathetic indeed.
STOP IMPORTING OIL FOR THE GOOD OF INDIA !!
Dr.V.N.Vasudev, 8.6.08 vasu.sacredtrust@gmail.com
[ off topic, deleted]
As usual, this is as productive as debating creationists, who are also immune to evidence, logic and rational discourse.
Also, like creationists, the reality deniers are some combination of deluded, dishonest and dumb. Maybe all three.
I’ll leave you folks to your science-free escape from reality.
REPLY: Congratulations on following the script exactly. I see it all the time. You can’t win the argument, and don’t provide evidence to back up the claims, so you toss some angry labels out, and leave.
That’s fine, we don’t encourage anger here, so you’d eventually violate the website terms of use policy anyway.
lol Too good to miss:
“And the blog post you referenced, the man who wrote it admits lying to try to get on, then you use his word as a reference?”
Are you simple? YOU referenced the blog post, not me. Or is there some rule that you can use a ‘dishonest’ blogger to prove a point, but I can’t use the same one?
Dude, you are looking so stoopid right now.
REPLY: I pointed out an effort using a deceit as a tool to discredit, you pointed out the effort as bona-fide fact for a procedure, simply because you seem to agree with the blogger. Big difference. Huge.
You can read up on the procedure here: http://www.petitionproject.org/
Still waiting for that proof on the bogus names.
Question: what is the ‘normal’ level of CO2? It has varied all over the place as far as we can tell. The 280 ppmv may or may not be valid, so it may have risen 100 ppmv in the last few centuries, or perhaps half that if the errors in ice cores are real.
Point is, we don’t know. To base wide and expensive conclusions on suspect data is foolish. And dangerous, if it results in food shortages.
As for consensus: All the Western nations (and almost all of the Democrats in Congress) thought Saddam had WMD’s in the late 90’s. Voted to give Pres. Clinton authority to use any means, including force, to remove him. Don’t hear much about that now, only a decade later. Conclusion based on limited facts, turned out not to be true.
The cost of a wrong conclusion this time around could be far worse.
Frank:
And the “normal” concentration is . . . ?
http://www.junkscience.com/images/paleocarbon.gif
Jeff Alberts,
“Mike Lawler, the things you mention have always happened and will always happen. There’s no evidence of anything catastrophic occurring after 40 years of so-called “unprecedented” warming.”
It sounds like you’re referring to the historical record. I agree, concentrations of greenhouse gases and the earth’s temperature have likely seen rapid and dramatic change in the distant past. But by saying that nothing ‘catastrophic’ has happened you highlight an important point. No one is saying the earth is going to overheat and everything is going to die as a result of climate change- no informed person thinks this. But the earth’s human population density is immense now, so changes in the amount and distribution of resources (perhaps most importantly fresh water) can have a dramatic impact on the people who rely on them to be as they currently are. What could be ‘catastrophic’ for humans now is just a blip on the long-term climate of the earth.
The biosphere is like a whacky control loop. It controls a freezer. Instead of providing a steady, well controlled, constant 17 Deg F temperature, this thing is either on or off. It’s a duty cycle control – 90% hard frozen, 10% thawing. Guess where we are right now.
I’m not sure why you say our contribution to CO2 is only 3%, given an increase of roughly 100 ppm since preindustrial concentrations of ~280 ppm. 3% is well-known, and accepted Mike. Why? Do you have some other figure? The 100ppm increase is also wrong, it’s more like 55ppm, due to how C02 was measured, and to how measurements were cherry picked. None of this matters, though, because it has almost nothing to do with the warming we’ve experienced. Got that? C02’s warming effect is logarithmic. The first 20 ppm has more warming effect than the next 400ppm. If the C02 levels were now at 1000ppm, it would have little warming effect, but a very beneficial effect on plants, and increased food production.
Per Strandberg :
“When the world continues to cool, they will switch from global warming to acidification of the oceans. And claim that there will be a rapid dying of plankton, coral reefs and of fish.”
Here it comes from the UK in today’s Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/08/eaocean108.xml
There was a rebuttal last week on Icecap.
Anthony: Why do you even bother to respond to anyone that calls you simple or stoopid (sic)?
MA is obviously indoctrinated into the cult of gorebull.
The science is settled – stop studying or discussing it.
Shut down your site now!!
REPLY: Well its simple, Google searches. Both sides need to be presented. People can call me anything they want, they can rail, scream yell, whatever. But a good dose of fact following that almost always cures it for the future.
I’m waiting for MA to provide some scientific proof. It should be easy to do right?
Perhaps a graph of the 1900’s showing how increased CO2 and increased temps are tightly connected. (heh)
Or perhaps a graph showing the last 30 years of so of satellite data. Perhaps we could compare Jan. 1979 with May 2008 and we’ll see the clear signs of manmade global warming……on the precipice of “irreversible climate change” (change…change…change)
Waiting….waiting……….
Mike from Canmore :
“Normal” concentration of CO2 is… whatever concentration is where life is sustainable, where changes are slow and progressive. It seems to me that industries and vehicules spewing 27 gigatons of C02 in the atmosphere per year raise this concentration in ways that change our ecosystems significantly, and rapidly. How can life adapt to this?
Even this “good news” of augmenting biomass should be taken with caution. Lets say this augmentation in biomass is mostly due to Cyanobacteria proliferation (as it should be, since it is one of the most prevalent form of plant life on Earth): what do we know about the effects of Cyanobacteria colonization on other species? Next to nothing.
Lets roll the dice with CO2 concentration levels, and see what happens.
MA, Anthony has provided a list of over 30,000 scientists who have signed their names to a statement refuting the anthropogenic global warming theory. Can you provide us with a list of scientists who have signed their names to a statement in support of AGW?
Frank
“When man plays God, and affects Earth’s future by rapid change in his global environment, he is playing dice. Who needs that?”
Your paradigm seems a bit skewed. Man is not separate from nature but a part of it. Life on earth is carbon-based and we also share dna to greater and lesser extents with the other living creatures who inhabit this planet. We all belong here.
We do, however, have a special gift. And that is our capacity to learn about and to affect our surroundings in ways that no other creature has yet achieved. This is not a ‘bad’ thing, per se. In fact it is our way of adapting. It is the reason we’re basically at the top of the food chain.
Throughout the history of carbon-based life on our planet, carbon has been removed from the atmosphere and placed underground through various processes. The ‘carbon-cycle’ does not replenish all of the carbon taken out of the atmosphere which is why the CO2 PPM has gradually diminished (with a couple of exceptions) over the past 600 million years!
Recent studies (by AGW people, in fact) have shown (as a minor conclusion) that glaciations have not occurred when the CO2 PPM is above 500. Before the industrial age the CO2 during the warm interglacials was under 300 which is most likely the reason we’ve popped in and out of these glaciations and would continue to do so.
And as the earth cools, CO2 drops even more and we come dangerously close to stopping photosynthesis.
So mankind, without consciously knowing this, about 150 years ago started digging that carbon out of the ground and tossing it back into the atmosphere.
We did the right thing, though we didn’t know why.
How far we need to go with this climate fix is still an open question. But putting carbon back into the atmosphere was not an evil anti-gaia immoral humans-be-damned thing.
Not at all!
MA has no evidence, no facts, no science (though plenty of pseudoscience), just its “consensus” and ad hominems. AGW religion has addled its brains (what little of them it has). So very sad. You have no idea what you are talking about, don’t have anything to offer but your obvious hatred of us, and no desire to learn anything. Buh bye, Troll.
[…] knew that increasing CO2 could have a beneficial effect? I mean, other than anyone who took biology in high school. They found that over a period of […]
“In the age of the dinosaur, for example, CO2 levels may have been five to 10 times higher than today, spurring a luxuriantly fertile planet whose plant life sated the immense animals of that era.”
And where are the dinosaurs now… oh that is right they are all dead. I hope we don’t end up like the dinosaurs.
http://green4u.wordpress.com
MA,
From your post you say:
“Fortunately, this is rapidly becoming a non-issue. Every industrialized country on the planet accepts the reality of AGW. Obama is very clear on the threat and the urgency with which it needs to be addressed. It is one of his priorities when he becomes president. ”
You are right that all of this will become a non-issue. In a few years when things get really cool all you screamers will be very quiet. All we’ll hear is teeth chattering. Why don’t you go back to Deltoid, deSmogBlog Gristmill or similar and hang with your buds and rant and rave.. Do you ever wonder why sites like RealClimate and others of a similar vain don’t don’t include this site and Climate Audit or Icecap or similar in their blog roll? Because they can’t stand other opinions. They don’t want to be questioned. They know it all. The science is settled, the debate is over.
Baloney
Hey, how about a real name instead of a pseudonym to hide behind.
Retired Engineer: Question: what is the ‘normal’ level of CO2?
Perhaps a better question is what is the ‘normal’ level of change in CO2? The concern isn’t so much the magnitude as much as it is the velocity. I’m quite sure higher CO2 concentrations would be beneficial for plant life in general. But the benefits are not likely to be evenly distributed among all plant life. Either way, the faster it happens, the more uncertainties there are. It just goes without saying. Likewise, I’m quite sure that whatever climate change occurs is likely to have both advantages and disadvantages in the long run. But in the short run, the faster it happens the more stress is applied to various forms of life — including human life and particularly the economies of said human life.
Related to the latter, I fear that questions regarding energy — just energy, pure and simple — have gotten hijacked by the super-heated (pun alert) debate about climate change. It appears that many think we don’t have to change the current energy equation if climate change is a myth. Not only that, but it appears that those who most fervently believe that climate change is a myth are also those who most fervently believe that fossil fuel supplies are essentially infinite. I have news for you — the two are not connected. And both those on the left and right have to understand that. There are very good reasons to advocate alternative energy sources besides climate change.
Once you get over that intellectual hump I think you’ll find that there very well might be very good reasons to advocate some alternative energy sources over others, in certain areas and at certain times, and advocate some policy implements over others, in certain areas at certain times. In short, the challenge facing us is simply not amenable to any sort of simple, cookie-cutter, black/white, either/or answer. We have to diversify, and get flexible. To the extent that we don’t, I fear we’re going to get our collective butts kicked.
CO2 The Real Greenhouse Gas ™, more is better! 🙂
You know I never realized how accurate it was to call CO2 a greenhouse gas. Not just a greenhouse gas, The Greenhouse Gas, the one that will turn your Greenhouse Green! Because Greenhouses love it and add it to the atmosphere to make the plants thrive. Especially since we know that the Greenhouse Effect is misnamed since it has nothing to do with why greenhouses warm, and only applies to the atmosphere.
Steve Sip, I had the same thought. When people and politicians realize they have been conned into believing the non-existent certainty and consensus proclaimed for AGW, there will be a serious backlash against science lasting a long time.
Thanks for the reply to my question about the temp station survey, Anthony; I`ve not heard from the True Believer yet, but he is in England, so I may receive a reply later.
Avfuktare Krypgrund VIND
“CO2 levels will not decrease rapidly because oceans cool”
Ok, so how do you explain this diagram created from Mauna Loa data?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2056/2471196255_c3318ee700_o.jpg
To me it seems that CO2 increase per year is rather well correlated with earths temperature even though we add some CO2 to the carbon cycle each year.
Perhaps the greens instinctively crave the hard times necessary to reset their minds. Some people can’t tolerate prosperity.
Robert in Calgary:
I could easily provide a temperature graph and demonstrate a statistical correlation. However, I am well aware that this particular forum would likely either discredit my data sources or my analysis, so I and other will refrain from wasting our time posting empirical data. As for your challenge about posting May’s 2008 temperatures, I’ll warn you as I’ve warned many others – you’re barking up the wrong tree. Bear in mind that yesterday was a record-setting high temperature weather day across the the Eastern US; it may be an unscientific conjecture, but I’m not going to be surprised if the global average temperature for June shoots way upwards.
MA,
What is your real name? Why do you hide behind a pseudonym? Why are you afraid to let people know who you are? Come into the light, MA. I definitely put more stock in real people than I do in phantoms. Why I even read REALCLIMATE. Again, put your name where your mouth is. Mike Bryant, Texas
Humm,
Interesting discussion. Taking a leap of faith that I won’t be dumped in the garbage heap for talking about God for a moment…
OK those of you who are still with me, What about this as a sort of generalization. Many of those on the AGW seem to indicate this planet is extremely fragile and delicate. Any human push or pull is apt to create some kind of horror from which it will never recover.
Yet I meet many who believe in a Creator who think the mind that put this all together probably did a pretty good job of bracing it for the humans It created. (PS check your greek, God has no sex) Maybe because It knew us so well.
Anthony, enjoy the Blog. Like the science, and no, I don’t think the earth is 6K years old.
Mike
[…] As CO2 levels increase in the atmosphere, so does vegetation. Why? Plants need carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. WattsUpWithThat […]
Mr. Watts
Your posting of the SeaWiFS animation just below your title that biomass loves CO2 seems to indicate that you believe that SeaWiFS data shows increasing oceanic photosynthesis levels or biomass over recent decades correlated with increasing CO2. However, I cannot find any articles which agree with that point and have found many that seem to contradict it.
Can you clarify the point in including the SeaWiFS animation? Is it just a cool pic otherwise unrelated to your title?
REPLY: You first. What articles contradict it? Links please.
This is good to hear.
But the biosphere in my neck of the woods got off to a slow start this year.
Also been a snowy June for the N. Rockies. Cascades expected to receive 6-12″ of snow down to 2500 ft tonight.
And the Plains getting hit hard with rain. Not good for crops. Satellite will be seeing more water than plants here for a while.
And the west coast of Washington is still cold. 50f in Seattle area right now, been that way for more than a week. So while the east coast might be having a heat wave, other major areas in the country are very cool. So it evens out.
REPLY: You first. What articles contradict it? Links please.
Sigh… doesn’t it always come down to this?
Meanwhile, the cost of energy keeps going up. Meanwhile, China and others keep rolling up long-term deals, intellectual property, and market share that will persist for years to come. In the end, IMO, this kind of conversation is stupid on so many levels.
The Ocean’s Biological Deserts Are Expanding
By Richard A. Kerr, ScienceNOW Daily News, 25 January 2008
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/125/1
For those without access, a similar article here:
Study Shows Ocean “Deserts” are Expanding
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080305_oceandesert.html
Now that I’ve shown you mine, can you explain the point of the SeaWiFS animation being included with this thread?
REPLY: Thank you for providing those. As you note, the top link is behind a green wall, you have to be either a member or pay for the article, which I’m unwilling to do. I’ve already paid for this research once via taxes, I won’t pay a second time to view taxpayer funded research. I suggest that nobody else does either.
The second article, does contradict my post, yes, and it illustrates how different researchers can arrive at different conclusions from the same data. Interestingly, they also use SEAWIFS imagery to illustrate the point in the article.
I also use SEAWIFS imagery to illustrate the point, and your point in questioning that is?
Counters: My SWAG for the UAH-2TLT for the first week of June is -0.20
Green4U: If the dinosaurs had a space program, they wouldn’t be extinct.
Oh, I can’t resist.
“There was only one phony: Spice Girl Geri Halliwell…. – Michael Fox, the actor, and Perry Mason, the fictional lawyer in a TV series — were actually bona fide scientists.”
Then why have all their names been scrubbed from the list? Again, you provide no evidence for any of your assertions, whereas I have – even though you deny *that* reality as well.
“Still waiting for that proof on the bogus names.”
Again: http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/oregon-petition-redux/ – or do you need me to copy and paste it all on here? Or do you need someone to investigate every one of the 31,000 before you realise you’ve been suckered?
Just to humor you, I picked a few names from the list at random that looked likely to be unique:
‘Karl Spangler Quisenberry’. Guess what? Karl must be communicating from the grave because he’s been dead since 1978 – http://www.authorandbookinfo.com/ngcoba/qu.htm .
And another: ‘Florentino V. Quiaot’. He’s alive, so that’s good, but he’s a civil engineer – http://www.fasaesocal.org/docs/FASAE%20SoCal%20Membership%20Database%20as%20of%20072107.pdf . His opinion matters why?
Another: ‘Keith J. Quanbeck’ – an agricultural engineer this time – http://www3.abe.iastate.edu/abe100/PDF/Degrees/AgEngrBSGrads.pdf
Another: ‘Kefu Xue’ – an electrical engineer – http://www.engineering.wright.edu/~kxue/
Another: ‘Edward J. Zuperku’ – an anesthesiologist – http://www.anesthesiology.org/pt/re/anes/abstract.00000542-200108000-00034.htm
And one more: ‘Yijing Xu’ – a genealogist – http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=64584
And, of course, this all makes the unsafe assumption that these people know they are on the list and agree with the propaganda that it stands for. Even if they do agree, they have no qualifications that would make their opinion any more important than the kid who serves you at McDonalds.
Is the penny beginning to drop yet? The cognitive dissonance must be deafening by now.
Here’s the thing Einstein, when you publish a list of signatories you need to provide evidence that those signatures are verified and correspond to real people who have the qualifications that they claim. The Oregon Petition provides no such thing. It’s unverified bullshit, as I’ve already said. It’s been completely discredited and is a laughing stock in the reality-based community. Even the wingnut author (who has expressed doubts about evolution – surprise ,surprise) admits:
“When we’re getting thousands of signatures there’s no way of filtering out a fake,” – http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980501&slug=2748308
Also, your comment regarding me referring to the “wrong list” can also be easily shown to be as clueless as everything else:
old = http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p333.htm
new = http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/Signers_By_Last_Name.php?run=a
Any fool can see that they’re identical. So, the ‘new’ list is just the same pile of unverified names from a decade ago. And you believe it. It must sting when you realise what an easy mark you’ve been.
Given your lack of skeptical process and evidence-based thinking, it becomes clear how you can also believe anthropogenic climate change is a hoax / conspiracy / giant global mistake by virtually every reputable scientist on the planet.
P.S. Whoever commented about the ‘flying on a plane’ being a poor analogy – you were right. The idiots who get on the plane are only going to kill themselves. The idiots who ignores the reality of climate change are going to take the rest of us with them, along with tens of thousands of species of plant and animal. I’ll work on a better analogy. Thanks.
REPLY: Thanks for stepping up instead of just calling us morons. One blog post, i.e. one opinion doesn’t negate everything.
http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/oregon-petition-redux/
So, he thinks the list is bogus, so do you. We acknowledge your dislike, but dislike does not equate to truth.
Yes there are some deceased on the list, any list that large is bound to have deceased people on it. Plenty of climate science documents cited today have researchers listed on it that are now deceased. Should we throw them out?
And finally, you had me going there for a moment, with these two links:
old = http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p333.htm
new = http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/Signers_By_Last_Name.php?run=a
I looked at them both, and you are correct, the names lists of “A”‘s match between the two exactly.
But your thinking missed this critical detail, each “A” list has this at the top:
Signers A
900 Signers Out of 31,072 Total in US
31,072 is the magic number…both of the lists are the NEW lists, your assertion that one list is old (which would have about 18,000 signatories) and the other is new (Which would have 31,000) is thus falsified.
They updated the list both at the old (oism.org) and new (petitionproject.org). So all you’ve done is shown they have the same list published at both websites and that they agree. Yes, “Any fool can see that they’re identical.” but not just any fool can make a claim that one is ten years old and the other isn’t without reading the header.
P. S. Forgot this one:
“When we’re getting thousands of signatures there’s no way of filtering out a fake,” – http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980501&slug=2748308
But apparently, the screening process works, otherwise the blogger that I mentioned, BigCityLib, aka Michael J. Murphy, who by his own admission created a false name and lied to get on the list, failed to do so, again by his own admission. So apparently the screening works.
Counters: A high pressure ridge stalled and some of the eastern U.S. experienced high or record high temperatures; I live on the east coast of Florida where the high today was 91 (normal). (shrug).
Syl:
“Your paradigm seems a bit skewed. Man is not separate from nature but a part of it. ”
We have a special status: the only living form that can affect the Earth’s environment willfully. This goes with responsability. To “try” stuff (like putting 28 000 000 000 tonnes of extra material in the air every year) and “hope” for the best to happen is not responsible.
At the moment, volcanoes output of CO2 in the atmosphere is roughly 1% of the total extra greenhouse gas put in the atmosphere. If tomorrow all dormant volcanoes started “fuming”, and brought their total CO2 contribution to man made level, all would speak of a natural catastrophy. Yet, when we are responsible for such level of outputs, we call this: the industrial revolution. How comforting.
I’m not saying all human activity should stop. I’m not even saying that extra CO2 is dangerous, or even contribute to global warming. I think it does, but it’s not my point.
I’m saying: we live in such a cramped space, let’s be careful about how we transform it. We don’t know the consequences of our actions for sure.
Go ahead, but is this AGW thing a deep plot to discredit science?
I would characterize it this way: AGW is a plot to gain power. Those who are trying do not care about the reputations of science, lest they would be more careful.
Do you think that Gore considers the damage he may be doing to the reputation of science? I doubt it. Nothing in his past shows that he ever loved science and truth, in the way that many of us do.
It’s always funny, and a little bit frustrating, when people of MA’s persuasion argue by just name calling. I mean, it is not enough for them to say, “I disagree and here is why”, which he still can’t seem to do, but they have to follow it up with, “your stoopid” or your all “morons” cause you don’t agree with me! OT a little, but this is the common attitude of most extreme liberals IMO, and is why it is nearly impossible to have an intelligent discussion with them. Anyway….I leave it to you all who are more qualified to put MA in his/her place as from what I have seen so far, he is floundering in the mud of his own slinging.
If 99 engineers told you a plane was likely to crash and 1 said that it wouldn’t, you’d be pretty dumb to get on it.
Oh please, not this tired old, inappropriate analogy. Airplanes are made by engineers. The climate wasn’t made by humans, and we’re still trying to understand it. Extremely poor analogy.
Thanks Jeff Alberts for this point. Problem is is that people like MA BELIEVE we created our climate! And he calls us “creationist” whackos. 🙂
That’s the part I’m trying to understand. How does SeaWiFS illustrate your point? SeaWiFS shows declining ocean productivity during a period of increasing CO2. How does this illustrate your point?
REPLY: well by the article I cited, the researchers claim an increase. As I pointed out – different conclusions from the same data.
MA
Are you able to carry on an intelligent conversation without resorting to childish name calling? Anthony is being a gentleman. I wish I could say the same for you.
And where is the list of scientist who signed a statement saying they do agree with the AGW theory?
D. Overcast,
At least MA will discuss things so there is hope for him. Most extreme liberals I know refuse to discuss their beliefs beyond a certain point and that point is not very far! If they don’t call you a name out loud, you can guess they have you “pegged” as this or that in their mind. They figure they can’t change your mind with reasonable discussion perhaps because they judge everyone by their own measure.
Green4u
You said:
“And where are the dinosaurs now… oh that is right they are all dead. I hope we don’t end up like the dinosaurs.”
Are you suggesting that CO2 killed the dinosaurs? As I recall the popular scientific theory is that they were killed by an asteroid. Or are you suggesting that CO2 attracts asteroids?
You are awesome MA. You make us evil capitalists and Holocaust deniers smile with glee when you arive here with your namecalling, ad hominem attacks, and childish language. You’re side has had so much real world scientific data thrown your way debunking your religion (satellite data, Antarctic ice and temps, cooling oceans, weak sun, no warming until 2015 or 2020, 31,000 and growing skeptical AMERICAN ONLY scientists) that all you can muster is anger and pathetic cherry picking as you pray to Comrade Gore and the Supreme Green Soviet that the IPCC predicted planetary catastrophe is real and will happen if us Satanists have our way.
Oh, I can’t resist.
“There was only one phony: Spice Girl Geri Halliwell…. – Michael Fox, the actor, and Perry Mason, the fictional lawyer in a TV series — were actually bona fide scientists.”
Then why have all their names been scrubbed from the list? Again, you provide no evidence for any of your assertions, whereas I have – even though you deny *that* reality as well.
“Still waiting for that proof on the bogus names.”
I see a Perry S. Mason, PhD on the list. According to the wiki link you gave, that is the Perry Mason that was being questioned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition
REPLY: David you are correct, here are the “Masons” on the list in the “M” section: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p347.htm
Conrad Jerome Mason, PhD, Richard R. Mason, PhD, Perry S. Mason, PhD, Harry L. Mason, Jon L. Mason, Gayle Mason, William C. Mason, Michael R. Mason,
In the “F” Section we have these “Foxes”
David William Fox, PhD, Neil Stewart Fox, PhD, Russell Elwell Fox, PhD, Michael R. Fox, PhD, Brian D. Fox, G. Sidney Fox, Gerald Fox, James M. Fox, Irving H. Fox, MD, Harry James Fox, Forrest L. Fox, Corri A. Fox, Norman A. Fox, Timothy J. Fox, Bennett R. Fox, J. Fox, Donald W. Fox, Eugene K. Fox, Earl Fox,
There is a a Michael R. Fox, but no “Michael J.”…but there is a “J. Fox” so maybe he signed different this time to avoid the controversy from last time?
In any event, MA’s assertions aren’t holding up well.
David S.
I am not suggesting that CO2 attracted asteriods or arguing that an asteriod is not the reason why dinosaurs are extinct. I just think using an era when many of the living things on this planet were killed as an arguement for why the same thing happening again is good is some flawed logic.
-Green4u
Flowers,
to read your name is to laugh! Thanks buddy!
Jumping Jesus, I didn’t think I’d need to spell it out – a signatory dies in 1978, the list is compiled in 1999. Spot the problem? No? He died BEFORE the list was compiled. What are you gonna argue now? The list author held a seance? That wouldn’t surprise me at this stage.
You then ignore every argument and evidence that you cannot counter. You’re evidently some combination of delusional and deceitful. You don’t enter the debate with any integrity or honesty so there’s no point continuing it.
Also, YOU are the one who claimed the lists were different. Not me. Now that we’ve established they are not, you simply claim that the old one has been updated – again with NO EVIDENCE. Unfortunately for you, there is evidence – http://web.archive.org/web/20011127011126/www.oism.org/pproject/s33p333.htm – it was the same in 2001.
Does it get boring being proven wrong and shown to be a liar over and over again?
Whether you, or your delusional acolytes here, realise it or not, you’ve made yourself look like a total fool.
Much like creationists and the religiously-deluded, y’ all need to hide on little side-show websites, such as this, because you know you will be pilloried if you turn up amongst real scientists. Once again – pathetic.
REPLY: You wrote: “Also, YOU are the one who claimed the lists were different.”
Please point out where I specifically said the lists at those URL’s were different?
Ok I’ll check the deceased name, and the person to see if the 1978 is the same person or not. Your question there is valid.
I did check the Wayback Machine, for the last published page of the year 2001, and there are differences between that list in the wayback machine and the present one, for example, the last person in the A’s on the current list is “Azizollah Azhdam” and that name does not appear on the 2001 list. Another that appears on the current list but not in 2001 is “Willard Van Asdall, PhD” as well as “Zeki Al-Saigh, PhD“. So clearly the “A” list published today is different from the one from the wayback machine in 2001.
I suppose you would consider it unlikely that many of the same people that signed it then would sign it now? From my perspective, since they keep a record of every signer, names, address, phones, email if possible, they would send out new solicitations using that database? Or perhaps simply ask if you’d like to reaffirm and have your name kept on the list.
Freeman Dyson is on the list, on the front page at times. He’s a pretty smart guy. if the list were as corrupt as you claim, what makes you think he’d not catch that and ask his name be removed?
Your view assumes that the people conducting the second petition would be either stupid/lazy enough to simply repeat the last one and claim there were more names. Given the howling and visceral response from people like yourself to the first one, I doubt they’d leave themselves open to such easy criticism the second time around. The fact that my simple spot check of the “A” list reveals three differences (and there are likely many more) in names falsifies your assertion that “it was the same in 2001. ” It is not the same, some names are the same, some are new, as one would expect.
Finally, if you are going to call me a liar, which really isn’t necessary for a difference of opinion, stand behind it sir, you know mine, and have insulted my name, therefore it is only reasonable to ask what is your name? The email address “monoape” you use does not suffice.
See follow up reply regarding dead signatory issue below. – Anthony
TO Mike Lawlers, MA, Frank, Counter
Here what I think of your CO2 drives the climate perdictions.
“The Forecasting Models Are Unreliable.Complex forecasting methods are only accurate when there is little uncertainty about the data and the situation (in this case: how the climate system works), and causal variables can be forecast accurately. These conditions do not apply to climate forecasting. For example, a simple model that projected the effects of Pacific Ocean currents (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) by extrapolating past data into the future made more accurate three-month forecasts than 11 complex models. Every model performed poorly when forecasting further ahead.
The Forecasters Themselves Are Unreliable. Political considerations influence all stages of the IPCC process. For example, chapter by chapter drafts of the Fourth Assessment Report “Summary for Policymakers” were released months in advance of the full report, and the final version of the report was expressly written to reflect the language negotiated by political appointees to the IPCC. The conclusion of the audit is that there is no scientific forecast supporting the widespread belief in dangerous human-caused “global warming.” In fact, it has yet to be demonstrated that long-term forecasting of climate is possible.”
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st308
Mike Lawler, you should check out this.
http://www.weatherquestion.com/Roy-Spencer-global-warming.htm
And tell us where he is wrong in his observations. BTW what has been CO2 “sensitivity” to the climate the last 7 years?
Counters- It seem your problem is with the coal mines which you want to regulated though CO2 drives the climate theory instead how they mine the coal. Sorry, different argument.
hmmmm here in N E Alabama it is in the low 90 range the first week of June. Not unusual certainly cooler than last year but still not unusual. They tell us it will cool by the end of the week so back to at or below normal temps. I did an experiment testing the cold water and hot water effect on CO2. I opened a cold soft drink (Coke-a-cola) and there was only a small pfft of gas. Then I opened a warm soft drink (also Coke-a-cola) and nearly all the liquid was expelled from the bottle by the gas as it expanded and escaped the liquid in the bottle. Makes one think.
I like winter I can breathe better but the garden doesn’t grow. So I think warm is better over all.
Bill Derryberry
Anthony, how’s about a variation on Godwin’s Law (I was going to add a Wikiphilia link to it, but realised just in time that this would make me one of the first violators…).
Anyhoo, just as Godwin’s Law fingers Nazi analogies, I think it’s high time for a law which does the same for Wiki: anyone arguing solely on the basis of a Wiki link shall henceforth be laughed out of the room. Or legalese to that effect.
But, we have a problem. It cannot be called Watt’s law, beacuse that’s volts times ohms equals sparks, or summat like that. So perhaps you could call for nominations, a bit like the Atlantic does with WordPlay, as a separate thread.
1 – for the precise wording of said Law
2 – for it’s name.
MA: Your NewScientist, Gristmill, RoyalSociety, and George Monbiot links have been ignored for good reason. They’re actually quite funny. No reason to debate them. From Gristmill: “Mona Loa is a volcano.” I liked that. It made me chuckle.
If those are the best links you could provide for a discussion on climate change, I understand now why Green Advocates are losing debates to skeptics.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-are-green-advocates-failing-in.html
You came poorly prepared.
Regards
Umm, it looks like you just did say it.
Without stopping all human industrial activity no meaningful reduction in CO2 can occur, therefore if you believe CO2 is a problem, which you DID state, you have to stop, now.
Well I can’t be certain, but I think that the article the Financial Post guy is quoting is a 2003 Science article by Nemani, Running, et al and not a 2004 article (at least I can’t find it). And when the Financial Post guy refers to “the earth as a whole,” I pretty sure that original source is referring to just land mass as the article is about [i]global terrestrial NPP[/i]. No oceanic discussion in there at all. BTW, the original article finds that 80% of the increase is in the tropics (increased moisture) and high northern latitudes (increased temperature).
[b]Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999[/b]
Science 6 June 2003:
Vol. 300. no. 5625, pp. 1560 – 1563
DOI: 10.1126/science.1082750
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/300/5625/1560
Thanks for helping me figure out Watt’s Up With That!
Btw, Running and Nemani are from University of Montana.
You can find a presentation from Running here:
http://www.forestry.umt.edu/personnel/faculty/swr/Presentation/SupportingFiles/ViewerWM64Lite.html
D. Overcast –
I don’t think they’re attempting to persuade as much as they’re attempting to bolster their own convictions by belittiling and denigrating any contrary opinions. They cannot support their own arguments intellectually, so they’re reduced to name calling and insults.
It’s kind of sad, really – what would twist a person so that they cannot look at the evidence and think for themselves, instead of having to depend on sound bites and talking points, some of which are very much out of date?
FOLLOW UP REPLY TO “MA”:
Ok here is the word on MA’s assertion that a dead person was added on the Oregon Petition after their death:
MA wrote: ‘Karl Spangler Quisenberry’. Guess what? Karl must be communicating from the grave because he’s been dead since 1978 – http://www.authorandbookinfo.com/ngcoba/qu.htm .
From that URL I find this entry:
Karl Spangler QUISENBERRY {US} (M: 1897 Aug 2 – 1978 Oct)
It doesn’t say what the author wrote about, or anything else.
I did find some references to an Atomic Physicist that might very well be deceased (he’d be 111 now) http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1956PhDT………1Q
And I found a record in the Spangler Family tree here:
http://www.spanglers.info/g0003857.html
But at the same time, I find a Karl S. Quisenberry alive and well and living in Asheville, NC.
He’s on the board of the symphony:
http://www.ashevillesymphony.org/about/board
He’s an AAUW Educational Foundation Fellow:
http://rwc.aauwnc.org/archive/03-04/fellows-reception/fellows.htm
He and his wife donated money in the last national election in 2004:
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/north_carolina_asheville_28805.asp?cycle=04
And he helps out the local radio station:
http://www.wcqs.org/WCQS_Capital_Campaign040106.pdf
He’s listed on the radio station page as:
Karl Quisenberry
Physicist (retired) &
Community Volunteer
So once again MA, your assertions don’t quite hold up. I have more proof of a living Physicist named Karl S. Quisenberry who may in fact be the signer, than you have of a dead author in 1978 being the “signer”.
Occams razor says that the simplest explanation would be that the living Karl S. Quisenberry who is a physicist is the signer.
In fact you are welcome to call him up and ask him:
Google Phonebook results for Karl Quisenberry, Asheville, NC (search on your own)
Karl Quisenberry 828-285-xxxx xxx xxxxxxx xx, Asheville, NC
I’ll take that apology for calling me a liar anytime you are ready.
I’ll just hit one more home run and leave you to your comfortable, science-free beliefs.
“Freeman Dyson is on the list, … if the list were as corrupt as you claim, what makes you think he’d not catch that and ask his name be removed?”
Maybe an 85 year old man has better things to do than chase after wingnut websites that misappropriate his name? However, I don’t know for sure – I’m not Freeman Dyson.
What I do know for sure is that he said:
“One of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas.” – http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html
That wraps it up nicely. You’ve finished as you started – with science-free, evidence-free and error-strewn assertions.
It’s been good sport – in the same way that shooting cows with an automatic would be good sport.
REPLY: ah…running off into the sunset without acknowledging your errors, classic behaviour for a phantom who won’t use his real name.
Since you called me a liar, with no apology even though requested after showing the error of your claims, and plenty of solid evidence was presented. I’ll counter by saying: Sir, you are a coward.
I’ll leave you then with some things Freeman Dyson recently said here:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/freeman-dyson-on-heretical-thoughts-and-climate-change/
That’s quite a statement. But this one is really what hit home with me, because it captures the essence of what my http://www.surfacestations.org project is all about:
I think this study’s conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt.
Over the course of the study period, the area of the Amazon rain forests was reduced by apprx. 10-15 percent through deforestation.
Either the use of the deforested lands for grazing, cane, or soy production dramatically increased its’ production, or the increase in the forest production was approaching or exceeding 50% in a 15 year period. I’m sorry, that’s possible, but a little tough to swallow, seriously.
In the quote above, the researchers associate decreased cloud cover with an increase in production, but as sharp as these guys are, that screams to me that the spectral differences of differing cloud cover distorted their readings and conclusions and they were unable to correctly calibrate for the difference. The same could be true for other parts of the world.
If I were to be completely contrarian I could observe that depletion of fish stocks could also manifest itself as increased plankton populations, but as someone observed earlier, increased Ocean productivity may not be evident, although I haven’t researched that one.
Personally, I believe that the biosphere is benefiting from increased CO2 and there is a lot of evidence from worldwide agricultural production that buttresses that belief, but let’s try to be objective and skeptical in how we take in new information, lest we fall into the MA’s of ignorance.
More green is not necessarily good unless it’s also diverse. It’s kind of like if white rabbits began multiplying like crazy at the north pole and we call that a good thing because it’s more “white fur” replacing the declining polar bear population.
The planet is WAY more complex then just 1 gas = 1 result, and 1 color = 1 result, etc…..
Guys, guys! Stop the bickering! Don’t you know that there’s a war going on?
🙂
This is beautiful. Those of us with common sense have known it the whole time, but it’s good to have some in the scientific community finally backing it up.
tooby,
Why is that true exactly?
Did Al Kaholik and Amanda Reckonwith sign the petition? Julius Sneezer? Linoleum Blownapart? Phew! I worked outdoors for 30 years and the Sun has seemed to get noticeably brighter as of late. How do I know this without an advanced degree in Solar Physics? I look at the damn thing every day. I asked outdoor types—farmers, fisherman, pilots,lifeguards, my buddy Bob, if they noticed a slight increase in solar luminosity. Many said ‘Oh yeah!’ Now- all you brainiacs in academia need to do is leave the safe, secure confines of your government funded labs and un-scientifically talk to the old groundskeeper that maintains your athletic fields, ask if he’s noticed anything different about our sun. He just might have noticed something you missed indoors. A German physicist speculates theres a change in the random oscillations of Einsteinian gravity waves from the galactic core that mysteriously energize the sun’s magnetic field. Measureable data thats being ignored. The outer gas giants also have a huge gravitational effect on the inner planets. Gravity and magnetism generate heat and light. The solar system is a huge elegant rolling billiard table, where nothing physically touches, orbiting in an outer galactic arm. Where is the crucial input of Cosmologists? Are these distinguished educators objectively searching for empirical knowledge or standing on the shoulders of giants to reach the top shelf grant money in the PC cookie jar?
Diverse green? Well, I’m rather partial to hunter green, but I suppose there’s room enough for kelly green and olive green.
Anthony, do you really think you deserve an apology? After all you, me, and ~95% of the posters on this site, are, according to Comrade Gore Jong-Il, a laughably tiny minority of flat earthers who also believe the Moon landing was staged in Arizona. You KNOW that all we like to do is get together and party about how ignorant and stupid we are as we exchange “theories” about Earth’s climate. (sarcasm off).
Anthony, where is McCarthyism when you need it? I think it’s time to bring it back. Anyway, this arcticle (amazing how this discussion was first about a SCIENCE arcticle) is certainly compounding the establishment of scientific fact of more carbon dioxide=more flourishing plant life, and how it helps that the planet is warm, for now. Warm is warm and CO2 is CO2, and both are good things regardless if it was created accidentally by humans or “intentionally” by that little star that gives Earth light.
ROTFL, you can’t even find the ball field!
White rabbits at the North Pole would be awesome. Enough of them could compensate for the albedo loss due to carbon soot unless their droppings accumulated to the point of canceling their fuwwy refwective pwoperties.
Not to mention they could function as a food supply for polar bears.
Santa might be able lower his carbon footprint by using locally grown fur in gift manufacturing.
Harp seals could be saved by the tens of thousands with the substitution of Newfie bunny bashing.
Or, can you imagine the thrill of hunting white rabbits on the furry tundra. You wouldn’t be able to see them until it’s too late. It would be completely sporting.
REPLY: Careful, last thing I need is the PETA peckers howling here.
MA,
I think your home run went foul. Strangely enough when I go to the link you provided underneath your Dyson quote the first Dyson quote it shows is the quote supplied by Anthony. That is, ““My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models.”, not the quote you supplied, ““One of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas.”
Your quote is further down in the text and is, I think, taken out of context and misrepresents Dyson’s beliefs. If you read the entire section from which your quote is extracted you will see the Dyson thinks global warming is a problem tho, in his words, “its importance is exaggerated” (from the sentence before your quote). Even your quote is not indicative of a pro-AGW stance as he states CO2 is ‘one of the main causes’, not the main cause of a problem that is ‘exaggerated’.
What’s even more interesting is that this section was written in August 2007 and, if you were to read the entire section that contains your ‘home run’, Dyson mentions the need to measure the amount of biomass created by the additional CO2 put into the atmosphere that is absorbed by biomass, “We don’t know how big a fraction of our emissions is absorbed by the land, since we have not measured the increase or decrease of the biomass. The number that I ask you to remember is the increase in thickness, averaged over one half of the land area of the planet, of the biomass that would result if all the carbon that we are emitting by burning fossil fuels were absorbed. The average increase in thickness is one hundredth of an inch per year. ”
I think there’s a danger in selective quoting in anger because there is a tendency to fail to read the quote within its proper context, something I think you have done.
I’ll leave you with one last Dyson quote from the conclusion of his climate change heresy, I found it most interesting (I’d like to thank you for providing the link btw, Dyson is a very smart man),
” When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories. Many of the basic processes of planetary ecology are poorly understood. They must be better understood before we can reach an accurate diagnosis of the present condition of our planet. When we are trying to take care of a planet, just as when we are taking care of a human patient, diseases must be diagnosed before they can be cured. We need to observe and measure what is going on in the biosphere, rather than relying on computer models. “
Ya know, “There’s diversity, then there’s Diversity.” – The Gospel According to The Greens
examp., courtesy tooby: polar-adapted white rabbits are not Diverse; unless Polar Bear populations are increasing; which never happens; even if they are.
Here in Oregon, my wife and I have noticed this spring that all of our trees, bushes and other plants seem to have more and larger leaves this year, and the entire garden seems more lush than we can ever remember. We were just discussing this last week.
I doubt that this is coincidence.
Declining Polar Bear populations? Hmmmm.
“A survey of the animals’ numbers in Canada’s eastern Arctic has revealed that they are thriving, not declining, because of mankind’s interference in the environment.
In the Davis Strait area, a 140,000-square kilometre region, the polar bear population has grown from 850 in the mid-1980s to 2,100 today.
“There aren’t just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears,” said Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist who has spent 20 years studying the animals.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1545036/Polar-bears-'thriving-as-the-Arctic-warms-up‘.html
Re: Fluffy White Rabbits: It’s just a little fluffy rabbit. That’s not a rabbit. It’s vicious man eating beast!!
Re: Fluffy White Rabbits. sorry, missed the YouTube link above.
Wow Anthony, you sure hit a sore spot with this entry!! It’s revealing how quickly the arguments put forward by AGW proponents descend into the shrillness and irrationality of personal abuse when faced with any study that contradicts their “religion”.
As always, scientific method, open mindedness and healthy scepticism will win out in the end. The burgeoning popularity of your excellent blog is surely proof of this – hopefully the AGW debate is reaching a far more valuable tipping point than the one Mssrs Gore and Hanson had in mind!
Klockarman,
Good for Oregon
Here in the south of Greece we have had a second year of sparse rains and my cottage garden is not doing well, CO2 or no. The wild artichokes never bloomed, the young olive trees dropped their flowers and the pistachio trees have little fruit. I did not even hae to cut the weeds by machine. The few that have come up I cut by hand.
Soon we will have water rationing. We go through this periodically.Twenty years ago you would be fined if you washed your car with running water.
I watch the weather in western Europe where they are having floods and wish there were a way to spread the bounty as equitably as CO2 is spread.
Europe had a mild winter. We kept all the heat from China and north america :). Must be all that CO2, we are great breathers out, as yoga is catching around here. :).
It’s funny how they have to add that last phrase, when it’s completely irrelevant. They’re thriving not BECAUSE of man’s interference in the environment, they’re thriving because they’re thriving. Such silly crap.
Somebody pointed me to this lovely CO2 world map.
http://www-airs.jpl.nasa.gov/Products/CarbonDioxide/
Unfortunately it is only for July 2003.
Does anybody know of more such maps? Why are there no others on the nasa site? Politically unsound as they show most CO2 coming from west to east over the industrialized countries?
It would be great if we could have a daily map, the way we have with temperatures in http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst.html. Even a monthly one would be fine.
then one could see details and make correlations with growth etc.
Goodness me.!
I just went to sleep and when I get up there is all this anger on the blog. MA seems to have changed the atmosphere with his accusations and I have never seen Anthony getting so angry on here before.
One of the best things about this blog is the calm rationality of it all.
I can understand the anger.
It comes from allowing other viewpoints on the blog… a strength of your site Anthony.
I asked at the start of this article if someone could help me with understanding something.
On a previous article there was a link to a professor in eastern europe who had done a lot of work on ice core ,measurements of CO2 and he suggested that the common belief that CO2 has increased since the industrial age was based on not understanding what happens when the cores are extracted. Pressure effects combined with the extractor liquids etc changed the composition of the trapped air bubbles. So I was believeing this and thought that the increase in CO2 might not be true. Then there is this article which seems like it confirms increased CO2 and increased warming.
I can see how “deniers” can argue that Earth is not warming. I thought there was legitimate thinking that CO2 had not significantly increased. This article seemed to suggest warming and increased CO2. To say this is a good thing is one argument. But it is difficult to argue this at the same time as saying that there is no warming and no effect of CO2.
It seems like having your cake and eating it..
” there is no warming,,,, but if there is it will be good for us” Does not form a good line in arguments. It could be legitimate , but it does seem to give the appearance of a lack of consistency. A bit like a child who says I did not do it, but if I did it was someone else’s fault. It is the appearance that matters when I have discussions with our Geography department in school.
Can anyone help me with this?
I admire MA! It, MA that is, was able to distract the discussion away from the essential thread quite well. At least I found myself more fascinated with the MA vs. Watts match than the original discussion.
Now I am in the process of ordering a couple of books by Freeman Dyson. He, will most likely add quite a bit to my understanding of the world. What an interesting man.
However, I would like to make a clarification for Ron Broberg, unless I missed someone else doing it.
It is quite easy to draw two, on the surface, opposing scientific conclusions from the data. Your reference, speaks of growing biological deserts. That is probably correct. However, Watts speaks of the whole globe. Both observations are correct. The biological deserts are a subset of the whole globe. What is missing from your reference is context. It should speak of how the rest of the biosphere is doing. If the rest of the planet is showing increased biomass then these “deserts” are not the primary story. The big story is that the biosphere is blooming. Watts article also indicated that parts of the globe showed a decline. So, the original article recognize both situations. Your article ignores the overall fact of increase. I find your article limited in focus. It speaks only of the oceans. It is ignoring land surfaces.
What ever happened with that list of 2500 IPCC reviewers, did the UN ever release that information? Sort of odd that MA would complain about a list of 32,000 scientists posted on the internet, as if this is some sort of bother for him/her, when I’d almost gaurantee MA never attacked the IPCC AR4, which refuses to list it’s scientist/reviewers altogether.
Knuckle bump on that Karl Quisenberry trackdown, Rev.
MA W-H-O-S-E Y-O-U-R D-A-D-D-Y ?
heh
for thee, anna v
“… I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.” from Invictus by William Ernest Henley
Captain of your soul?
But what about your brain?
A single comic ray
could render it quite lame.
And with that lame brain
will you master fate?
If there is no God
then fate need not you heed.
But if He does exist
you surely can succeed.
Captain of your soul?
Yes.
Master of your fate?
No;
but perhaps First Mate.
anna, thanks for the inspiration
I try to tell everyone, but nobody listens.
Trolls like “MA” serve a purpose, although not the one they intend. Back when I still believed AGW was true (note, I wasn’t a Believer, but simply assumed it was true, as that was all I heard in the lamestream media, and I was still a Dem), one of the things that I noticed when I began looking for some actual science backing AGW was the shrillness, and the irrational nature of many of the AGW proponents. It was “the debate is over”, “the consensus is clear”, and if you don’t believe its true then either you’re a shill for Big Oil, a whacko, idiot, Creationist (Lol, if I had a nickel for every time that meme gets trotted out I’d be rich), and on and on. Wow, thanks, that makes things so much clearer for me (sarc off). So, I became a skeptic in part due to True Believer AGW Trolls like “MA”. So, thanks, “MA”. Continue with your “work”. There are more and more of us every day. But, now, just fly off on your AGW broomstick to wherever you came from, OK?
Meanwhile, the cost of energy keeps going up. Meanwhile, China and others keep rolling up long-term deals, intellectual property, and market share that will persist for years to come. In the end, IMO, this kind of conversation is stupid on so many levels. No, Rico, you are wrong. This type of conversation is, in fact essential. The AGW lie has to be exposed. Science has been subverted by an ideology, and humanity does need science desperately. No good can come from basing any type of energy policy on a lie. Yes, of course we need to be R&Ding sensible alternative energies, and becoming more energy independent, less wasteful, etc. But, the AGW crowd has hijacked science and is holding it hostage to whatever agenda they have (they are a diverse bunch, from ideologues, to political and financial opportunists and everything in between). We can not allow that to happen. That, my friend, is what this is all about.
Having been raised on a ranch and learned how to measure the good times and bad re: growing season, I learned this:
If you can irrigate, sunny long summers provided three hay cuttings. Cool, short summers produced one good one and one small one. The first one was extra lush. The second one barely grew tall enough to be harvested, not because of drought but because the crop didn’t get enough suntime and started freezing in the fall. In total, warmer summers were better for extending the hay season and getting more bales (didn’t work so well for peas but peas are a cool summer crop). Last year we just made three cuttings but that last one was puny. The year before we got three pretty good cuttings. Three cuttings have been the norm going back to the 70’s when cool summers prevented the longer growing season necessary for three cuttings. Dry land wheat was a bust. This year, dry land wheat is so thick you can’t see the soil.
So it seems logical that when the sun results in a warmer planet, and warm ocean currents kick out CO2 instead of allowing it to sink, CO2 gets taken up by plants growing in warmer, sunnier climates, which in turn produces more plants for next year, etc.
This year will be a very short growing season, resulting in crop loss compared to previous seasons. Some blossoms have already frozen off the trees. Wines, hay, fruit, etc will all show increased prices due to lower harvest. Me thinks the pretty globe will be colored differently as cooling continues.
Which brings up my last thought in this post. If the current climate trend continues, we may soon be able to say that global cooling will be the next thing to deny. All we have to do is wait. But don’t plant a bunch of stuff thinking you can benefit from all that CO2. Your crop could freeze before it uses up the abundance.
Wonder if they’ll make Al Gore give his Nobel Peace Prize and Oscars back.
Either the use of the deforested lands for grazing, cane, or soy production dramatically increased its’ production
Actually it does. Modern agriculture will produce more tonnage of growth per acre than forests or native grassland, generally.
Oh Come On!
Mark my words – this is not good, not good at all. And it will be so easy to spin for the AGW’ers:
Oh No! Now we find out that the biodiversity in the oceans have increased. This means that now, because of us and our horrible CO2, there is TOO MUCH plant life in the oceans. This extra plant life is squeezing the other indigenous species out of their natural habitat, and this will soon cause the whole underwater ecosystem to collapse!!!
From MA
Who should we listen to?
1. some TV weather presenter with no scientific qualifications?
2. the consensus of every single national science academy of every industrialized country on the planet that confirms the reality of anthropogenic climate change?
Clue: it’s not (1)
Talking of clues – get one.<<
Interesting how the AGW crowd when actual facts are presented fall back to quote someone else’s opinion. I’ve found many on the left don’t know the difference between facts and opinions. Al Gore is one.
Some of these global warming tards even want to change the colour of the sky!
http://thetinycorner.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/scientist-wants-to-change-the-colour-of-the-sky/
No surprise at all.
This is merely confirming evidence of this truth.
I think the mothercome warning applies here: too much of a good thing is a bad-thing. The Earth and breathing-life produce its own carbon emissions, the plants suck up the carbon to produce oxygen – it is a pleasant cycle. Still, too much carbon (and the Line-of-too-much can only be crossed by humans) can’t be absorbed in a timely manner. Sure, the abundance of CO2 may inspire plantgrowth, but greenery is probably sucking up only a fraction of it.
More plant growth is not necessarily a good thing. For example, we are also seeing severe decreases in biodiversity. Plants that require cooler climates to grow are being displaced to higher and higher elevations, until there’s nowhere left for them to go. A lot of plant growth is also occurring in the fresh water systems that we drink from as water levels go down and water temperatures go up–in this case, it’s a sign that our freshwater is in trouble, too.
And what about this global food crisis?
And severe droughts?
Plants can only process so much CO2 before the scale gets tipped too far.
I am saddened that my “elders” are so stubbornly clinging to their archaic lifestyles, at the harm of my generation and generations to come.
Anna V said: “I watch the weather in western Europe where they are having floods and wish there were a way to spread the bounty as equitably as CO2 is spread.”
Anna V,
I think you have hit on a great idea for Gore and his Warmers:
Affirmative action for the weather! To make sure that the weather is the same every where at the same time. That would be more fair. I’m sure the government can make this happen 😉
Denis,
I’ll give it a shot.
Regarding the first issue you raise, that of ice cores and CO2. I think that the issue is not the effects of the extraction (which would be a nice Hisenbergish effect) but that the CO2 tends to diffuse under the pressure generated by the ice formation process (which takes some 50-70 years I think). The result is that the CO2 that remains in the ‘bubbles’ is relatively uniform at about 260 ppm but does not reflect the CO2 content of the atmosphere at the time the ice formed. I believe there is work reflecting this as long ago as the 1960’s, but it seems to have been ignored/discounted by current scientists. I don’t know if that is because it has since been disproved or that modern scientists simply aren’t aware or if there is some nefarious reason to ignore it. If true, it renders measurement of CO2 vis Ice Cores completely worthless so we would have no clue. I do know that CO2 levels have been measured since the mid 1870’s and that these measurements do not correspond to the ice core measurements.
I don’t think anyone denies that the earth has warmed since 1979, however, based on satellite measurements you can show that the earth has not warmed since 1998. You have to remember that high correlation does not imply causality (look up the fun work relating the number of pirates to warming as an example) , so even though there is a positive correlation with CO2/warming (not a real high one though) since 1900, there is actually a slight negative correlation between CO2/Temp since 2002.
I don’t deny that some warming is caused via anthropogenic factors (CO2, methane, land use, urban heat island). What I do deny is that CO2 is the overriding cause of the current (recent past?) warming. It causes some warming, but not enough to merit the attention it currently receives and it certainly does not merit the draconian policies proposed to control it.
Before we set about attempting to terraform the planet and control the weather/climate I think we need to know a very great deal more about how it all works, lest we live up to the old saying regarding the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
Pamela: This year will be a very short growing season, resulting in crop loss compared to previous seasons.
Next two days in Wallowa County, snow levels from 4000-5000 ft., accumulation 6-8″ – temps. and net sun exposure so far not looking too good for growing elevations of ~ 3000 ft., eh? But the snowfields should do well.
“And what about this global food crisis?”
Now that truly is an example of something that is man-made. I think it relates more to how well farmers are getting paid for producing corn for ethanol as oppossed other food prodcuts. Basic laws of supply and demand.
Droughts? They have always been with us.
Food crisis, that’s a management problem, not a climate problem. Though it could become a climate problem if it gets too cold.
Show me the evidence that current droughts are more severe than those in the past.
Greenhouses typically pump in extra CO2 to stimulate plant growth, we’re talking 1800ppm here. So our measly 350+ is nothing. Plants are essentially barely surviving right now.
[…] atmosphere gets eaten by plants, which love it. Hat tip for the article goes to Anthony Watts at Watts Up With That, whose summation of the matter goes like this: Eco Worriers: “CO2 is a pollutant!” Gaia: “Tell […]
Well, if it does get cold, Americans can finally put their blubber to good use. And just when I finally decided to get rid of mine.
mercuryevermore:
If the globe cools, will we see decreases in biodiversity as well, as plants that require more warmth get pushed to lower and lower elevations, until there is nowhere else to go? Of course. And the impact would be a lot more severe.
Climate changes. Always has, always will. This Earth, sibling of your scorching eponym, has seen ice ages again and again, as well as warmth that makes 1998 look positively frigid. Yet life has flourished and diversified.
CO2 levels have been 5-10 times higher in the geologic past, and life did just fine. They dropped precipitously, and life did just fine. They rose again, and fell again (and are now very low, relative to their levels in the very distant past). And everywhere you look there is life.
The impact of antropogenic CO2 emissions (more than three gigatons annually of which are the result of something called “respiration”) is a practical issue, not an existential one. The major questions on the practical issues table are:
1) What impact will they have?
and once we know the answer to that…
2) What should we do?
We’re still very much trying to answer question #1 – and yes, I know that some believe “the science is settled”. I still have strong doubts, and given what I believe would be the ineffectual and/or extremely negative consequences of proposed answers to #2, I’d like some more time to evaluate #1, if you please.
As for droughts and food crises, has there ever been an era when things like that did not happen? We are fortunate to live in a world where economic growth and technology have advanced to the point where we can meaningfully talk about doing something to alleviate these problems – but I would suggest that crash reductions in CO2 emissions are not the first place to put our efforts.
You make reference to your youth, and I applaud your passion and energy. Looking back, I was like that once, too. But with age comes wisdom (or at least inertia) born of experience. You’ll see what I mean in twenty or thirty years, after AGW and two or three other global crises have come and gone.
I don’t think any of us really has a clue what any of this really means. Mostly I think we have too much incomplete information to draw any real conclusions.
Dennis Hopkins:
I thought there was legitimate thinking that CO2 had not significantly increased.
I don’t think anyone is questioning the recent rise in directly measured CO2 levels, only the scientific validity of ice core measurements in determining CO2 levels prior to the availability of more direct atmospheric measurements.
This article seemed to suggest warming and increased CO2.
There really isn’t any inconsistency in suggesting real warming along with an increased C02, while denying that C02 is a significant cause of any warming occurring. But from your first post it seems that you are instead presuming that increased CO2 levels are – or should be – currently causing significant atmospheric warming, for which the ipcc, enc., hypothesizes a necessary water vapor positive feedback beyond what water vapor has already done as is, and something which apparently no one has been able to explain on the basis of physics/climatic physics.
Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit has raised this question incisively, and has looked for the explanation himself and requested it from anyone available, asking, to wit, “where does the ipcc or anyone get the idea that doubling C02 will increase atmospheric temps ~ 3[+/-1.5] C.?” Where is the answer?
[I, for one, don’t see how the ipcc’s mechanism – whatever it is – could do much when facing an overall climatic dynamic which has already limited water vapor’s inherently positive and self-reinforcing, dominant effect on increasing atmospheric, even acting alone. So I await the explanation as to why I am off base when C02 doubling enters into it.]
Regardless, the “signature” for the ipcc C02 warming hypothesis – a more rapidly warming Troposphere at some level [9-12km?] compared to the surface – has not materialized in the Tropical Troposphere, not even the + sign of the prediction.
I can see how “deniers” can argue that Earth is not warming.
Instead, I think the main argument by “deniers” so far is that the ipcc, enc., has not scientifically proven that the Earth is warming; iow, it’s about whether the ipcc is operating scientifically. I’ve seen enough to answer “no”, without reservations.
As to whether warming is good: for starters, warming is certainly better than cooling. And once again, the ipcc has not investigated very much or emphasized the benefits of warming, consistent with its overall unscientific approach to “climate change”, nor the detriments of cooling.
[…] Earths’ Biosphere is Booming, CO2 the Cause One of today’s Top Posts from around WordPress.com: Surprise: Earths’ Biosphere is Booming, Satellite Data Suggests CO2 the Cause […]
Adios MA.
We’ll send you a fruit basket.
Jerry: You are correct sir! Give that man a cookie.
Bruce Cobb: “This type of conversation is, in fact essential. The AGW lie has to be exposed. Science has been subverted by an ideology, and humanity does need science desperately.”
Which ideology do you mean? I can think of at least two: extreme alarmists and extreme denialists. There is certainly value in questioning scientific findings. However, there isn’t much value in assuming that because any particular scientific finding can be questioned, the opposite point of view is true. For example, it’s one thing to question the evidence suggesting that the earth is warming on average, it’s another to conclude that because the evidence doesn’t approach the level of absolute proof the earth must therefore be cooling. That might be an extreme example, in fact I hope it’s taken as such. But to my mind it does reasonably approximate the thinking of some here.
Allow me to cite another more subtle, though more on-topic example: if higher atmospheric CO2 levels increase photosynthesis, that must be a good thing. After all, it’s a good thing in greenhouses, right? The trouble is, greenhouses are highly controlled environments. The world at large is not. There could be myriad cascading effects that could affect whole ecosystems quite apart from whatever CO2 (or other GHGs) have on climate.
I italicized could be because I don’t know for sure. It seems like a reasonable assumption, but it might be wrong. Further, I have no idea about the specific nature of the potential effects. Increased levels of CO2 apparently does have effects on ocean pH, and that apparently does have effects on shellfish and coral, which apparently have effects on various kinds of fauna which rely on them. And so on, and so on. Whether that’s good or bad in the long run, I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s accurate to any appreciable degree. But I think it goes without saying that if you muck with the system too much too quickly you increase the risk of unknown consequences which might not be so swell.
On the other hand, some of the consequences of burning more fossil fuels are very well-known, and many of them are not good. In fact, I would argue that the only compelling argument in favor of burning fossil fuels is that, at present, they’re cheaper than any other alternative. Given their known deleterious effects, once that changes, and to the extent that it changes, I suspect very few will want to burn them. And when we get to that point, those that have positioned themselves to take advantage are going to reap the profits. And the profits could very well be immense. In the mean time it also goes without saying that those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo (on both sides) will do all they can to maintain the status quo — which, among other things, means they will try to keep the playing field as far from level as possible to keep other potential players from playing on it. And that, I think, is something to keep in mind. There is more than one way to be subverted by ideology.
Which ideology do you mean? I can think of at least two: extreme alarmists and extreme denialists.
No, no Rico. You have got it all wrong. The alarmists are the extremists, and “denialist” is simply an AGW extremist’s name for what are essentially climate realists.
And, once again, you insist on conflating the issues of the burning of fossil fuels with that of C02. They are NOT one and the same. Are you really that thick-headed, or are you, once again, being disingenuous? Do you really equate C02 with pollution?
[new admin edit] Watch the name calling [/new admin edit]
“No, no Rico. You have got it all wrong. The alarmists are the extremists, and “denialist” is simply an AGW extremist’s name for what are essentially climate realists.”
Umm … it does seem you are kind of proving his point. By stating the other side is totally wrong and not taking a dispassionate middle ground you are putting yourself on one side meaning you have agenda and bias.
Just because you do not believe there can be anyone “extreme: on your side of the fence does not mean there are not some that can claim that label and so you become a part of what the other side sees as people they cannot debate with because you like them will not really listen or change.
Just for clarification … i do not know the truth and i dont think anyone really does so being wed to any ideology or current set of data seems short sighted to me.
Sorry, Howard, I’m not buying what you’re selling. The AGWers are the ones stating that the debate is over, and that we have to stop adding C02 pollution to our atmosphere now. The MSM continually espouse the AGW ideology, so that is all people hear. And, the politicians, many of them, are along for the ride. We are already seeing the consequences of that, and, in the midst of an economic dowturn, they want to raise the already-high cost of energy further still through their carbon trading scams, etc. And you don’t see that as a problem?
I know I’m late to the party, but my comment pertains to the troll MA who just had to throw in insults directed to anyone who holds traditional religious beliefs. I see this over and over from the True Believers (a very accurate term and description of AGWers).
No one on this site used traditional religion in any way as support for their opinions or perspective. But the AGWers, who really are clinging to their beliefs on a religious basis without any empirical scientific facts in support, always throw this out as an insult. In reality, I think it is due to the fact that they will suffer no other Gods that can compete with the the one they cling to. The fact they have no clue whatsoever that they are doing this indicates this must be some form of psychosis.
The other point is that MA, while incessantly challenging the validity of a survey disputing the alleged scientific consensus of AGW, ironically continued to ignore demands that he produce any petition whatsoever indicating scientific support of his position. The True Believers never feel they have to support their own position since they are sure that it is apparently self-evident.
MA, Yo, MA! Ya still hangin’?
Know of any scientific proof of human-driven global warming?
Big Al seems to gloss over that awkward “C’mon, prove-it” thing.
(Computer models which start with the programmer assuming that people-did-it don’t count.)
Anthony, dump him/her when ‘it’ shows again. No more logical response. It is not capable of rational discourse.
I don’t think anyone is questioning the recent rise in directly measured CO2 levels, only the scientific validity of ice core measurements in determining CO2 levels prior to the availability of more direct atmospheric measurements.
Count me among those who question the proxy measurements. And I don’t know how good or bad the cores are. But they show a distinct flattening (or even reduction) of CO2 during WWII, and that’s gotta be out to lunch. The world’s major powers shot up to full war production (UK in 1940, USSR in 1941, US & Japan in 1942, Germany 1943) and entire cities were incinerated (100 were bombed), air-raids of hundreds of planes each were being buffeted by comtrails from previous raids.
So it seems to me that that period at least is somehow CO2-discounted. One therefore wonders about the rest of the proxy record. Maybe Antarctica is not the best place to sample for worldwide emissions? (Not that there is much choice if one is using ice cores.)
Sam,
Paranoid schizophrenia is different from psychosis but the Onion does offer helpful advice on how that group should be treated at :
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_is_the_government
Perhaps they have something on how to treat psychosis?
Could we in the future please desist from using terms like “Are you really that thick-headed”, and all other insults, no matter how justified you think they may be?
I find I have little patience with blogs where such language is the norm.
One of the strong points about Anthony’s blog – and what helps to make it so “more-ish” – is his politeness and reasonableness. (Hang on, seem to be straying into Monty Python land here: ” … 2 of his strong points are politeness, reasonableness, and a respect for other people’s opinions …”).
His whole approach is far more effective, anyway, than using tedious, schoolboy insults.
Evan Jones (19:13:13) :
“Count me among those who question the proxy measurements. And I don’t know how good or bad the cores are. But they show a distinct flattening (or even reduction) of CO2 during WWII, and that’s gotta be out to lunch. The world’s major powers shot up to full war production (UK in 1940, USSR in 1941, US & Japan in 1942, Germany 1943) and entire cities were incinerated (100 were bombed), air-raids of hundreds of planes each were being buffeted by comtrails from previous raids.”
Now for the ice ages, maybe the absolute magnitudes of CO2 are off, s till a variations is seen that lags the temperature rise by hundreds of years. I would not discount that off hand.
Now in WW2 you are just counting spikes by bombings and town burnings, and are discounting the enormous continuous hardship of people freezing without coal and starving without food. It would need a detailed world measurement of the extent of slowing of the world economy during the war years to make any sense of the reduction of CO2: less ships plowing the oceans, less cars/trucks etc. Also millions died and stopped exhaling CO2 and stopped needing fuel.
Bruce Cobb- every well said.
Steve Strip
I’m 145 lb, I demand the govenment give some of your blubber. I may need it to keep warm in the coming years.
BTW lehnman Bother, whom is lobbying hard for CO2 cap & trade scam, is losing a lot of money. Sounds like another Enron story. Could Al Gore’s company be next?
So when the sea level rises 7 metres from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet , how much of this extra vegetation will be under water? And how many people worldwide would be threatened by this rise?
Don’t forget that last year was the second warmest on record in the Northern Hemisphere, the warmest being in 2005.
And if the sceptics disbelieve all the data pointing to AGW saying that the science can’t be trusted, how come they accept without doubt anything that points the other way? And how come you believe these satellite readings, without question, on vegetation?
Anna: WWII happened after a world wide economic depression. The economy was very slow before the war. Then everything shifted into high gear. We had rationing, because the war effort needed it (well, some of it).
The U.S. also had the warmest decade on record in the 30’s. Not sure how that would tip the CO2 scale, but industrial activity didn’t add much.
Not that this proves much. Smoke from all the oil fires after the first gulf war were supposed to trigger a mini ‘nuclear winter’. That didn’t happen, either.
“His whole approach is far more effective, anyway, than using tedious, schoolboy insults.” Paulus
I agree. The Onion video is hilarious though and shows in a backhanded way how not to treat paranoids, for instance.
Al Gore is nearly irresistible, though, as a subject for ridicule.
sandy winder (03:40:16) :
Where are you getting the numbers from? Science fiction documentaries?
The IPCC report, found in full in http://www.ipcc.ch, gives only something like 40 to 60 cms in 100 years. That is about how much the sea level changes with normal seasonal rhythms in my area ( Greece) and nobody builds so low as to be affected by such rises.
The numbers you quote are for 1000 years hence, if the models are correct, which is another story. They have been falsified on several fronts.
So instead of questioning our credulity check on yours, and please give a scientific link for these 7 meters.
Sandy,
Government intervention is far more likely to cause massive loss of life than changes in the climate. Whether it gets hotter or colder is not really the crucial issue. It is whether some will impose their ideas on others via the government which at rock bottom is FORCE.
a good rule of thumb: Good ideas do not have to be forced on others and bad ones should not be.
If nothing else, the current scientific debate should tell us that the climate and its effects on mankind are very complicated and subtle. This is NO time for heavy handed dictation from human governments.
Some wish to rule, all power theirs, us their tools.
If they get that wish, it comes with this:
All the blame and all the shame.
So, be careful what you wish.
[…] So much for all of the global warming fanatics. Feeling a little chilly today? Doesn’t it seem like the weather is actually cooler than past years? I’ll freely admit that I’m a global warming denier/skeptic but, unlike the UN committee and Al Gore, the science is on my side. Latest piece of evidence comes via Anthony Watts … a “dead” sun. Doesn’t sound good, does it? And, by the way, CO2 is good for the earth. […]
[…] it through their heads that what this particular waste product of civilization is plant food. This particular piece is on the natural result of that. Not that we don’t need to reduce our footprint through reasonable approaches, but the […]
[…] which on first inspection I would suspect has a similar agenda to Mr Solomon’s, has some nice animations on ocean productivity using SeaWiFs data. Again, no real surprise: here’s a relevant Nature paper (Behrenfeld et […]
I for one am absolutely ecstatic that the global climate change debate is finally over. The predictive debate, that is. Let the factual debate begin. Worrying about whose future fantasy is correct is like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog they are riding on. Worried about a 2 (IPCC) or 20 (the Gorical) foot rise in sea level due to GHGs? OK, how will you tell it from the 80-100 feet we still have to go in order to reach the typical sea level highstands we have achieved since the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (8 ice ages ago, or 800,000 years back). We have known for over half a century that the abrupt ice age terminations cause about 400 feet change in sea level, 300 feet below present to about 100 above, in the only thing that resembles a clock in all of geology. We have the ice core data from Vostok and Dome Concordia that tell us that temperatures go up, and on average 1.3k years later CO2 levels go up. Temperatures go down and on average 1k years later CO2 levels go down. Like us, CO2 was a spectator at these dramatic events, not an agent provocateur. In fact, if you take a moment to think about it, if it takes an industrial revolution to get a 2 or 20 foot rise in sea level, then what might the source be for all those 400 footers? It won’t be volcanoes, because we do not know of any that erupt on a 100k year clock while simultaneously producing no ash during their eruptions (that would be in the cores too, but oddly it isn’t present at the transitions). Over the past 2-3 million years hominid braincase size has gone from 500cc to about 2,500cc today. You might find it interesting to look into how and when the incremental jumps that did this took place. I look at it this way. A mind capable of deftly manipulating a single variable (CO2) may not be as evolved as a mind capable of simultaneously considering the effects of astronomical numbers of variables (solar cycles, precession, obliquity and eccentricity etc.). In other words, we may finally have the litmus test for evolution right here.
anna v:
It may be better than even you think.
According to Lord Monckton (as a result of some of his inconvenient and most unwelcome peer review), the IPCC in it latest AR4 supplement, has drastically reduced its sea level rise predictions. They did their sums wrong!
The Monck (an official IPCC reviewer) commented, with considerable irony, “I have finally earned my Nobel Prize.”
P.S., Re WWII and CO2.
There was so much more heavy industry during WWII than in the years preceding it. Vehicles (AFVs, trucks etc.), planes, ships. If there were shortages, it was not because less coal was mined, it was because it was being consumed by the Rustung.
And there were plenty of ships. Continuous convoys. The whole of the British, US, and Japanese merchant fleets were going all-out, with losses being replaced (via smoky shipyards).
50 million died, but I doubt that would have had much impact on CO2, especially as the bulk of those deaths came in the last two years.
I can’t believe less coal and oil was being consumed in WII than during the Great Depression. And all those cities . . . we incinerated urban Japan.
Well, Evan, one would have to study this, no? I can handwave and you can handwave, but real hard numbers are needed to see whether convoys really replaced commercial liners, or whether the war effort consumed as much or more as peacetime.
In addition one would have to study the weather at the time.Maybe it was very cold and some of the CO2 was picked up by the oceans. Actually why does one need proxys for CO2 in WW2. They were measuring CO2 directly in the 1800s already. All this CO2 business is very suspect. Particularly as nobody is making the effort to give us world maps of CO2. I have only found one of July 2003 which is very interesting, but could not find any other months or years.
I wonder if this is related. Marijuana potency increased in 2007, study says
Marijuana potency increased last year to the highest level in more than 30 years, posing greater health risks to people who may view the drug as harmless, according to a report released Thursday by the White House.
The latest analysis from the University of Mississippi’s Potency Monitoring Project tracked the average amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in samples seized by law enforcement agencies from 1975 through 2007. It found that the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007, compared with 8.75 percent the previous year.
The 9.6 percent level represents more than a doubling of marijuana potency since 1983, when it averaged just under 4 percent.
Could someone plot that over the Mauna Loa co2 graph? It sounds alot like what was reported about poison oak potency. Both are based on the oil of the plant.
I realize that the media only mentioned co2 enhancement of poison oak for the propaganda value, they wanted to cast plant augmentation in the most negative light they could think up.
Funny that no where do they link it to the pot enhancement.
It has to have the same effect though.
I lived in Florida and have bad memories of life there. So, bring on the CO2, I’m going to enjoy seeing it go under.
[…] that is arguable, since plants-and animals-generally prosper under warmer conditions. In fact, they appear to be doing fine in the Modern Warming Period.) but many of us are certainly suffering right now from our attempts […]
[…] Surprise: Earths’ Biosphere is Booming, Satellite Data Suggests CO2 the Cause […]
[…] Click to read the rest of the story […]
We cannot create CO2, correct? So am I correct in saying that man made CO2 increases are just an increase in released trapped CO2? If true, we can slow this down quickly. There is just so much CO2 in the world and it moves from place to place. Correct me if I am wrong here.
[…] Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics — Prior et al. 37 (3): 753 — Journal of Environmental Quality Surprise: Earths’ Biosphere is Booming, Satellite Data Suggests CO2 the Cause « Watts Up With … […]
can u answer my question,,
i couldnt understand the words “Techniques to remove carbon from the atmosphere also sound alarms” what does it mean!!
please!! answer 4 me l,
i really want to know
[…] The biosphere is blooming due to CO2: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/08/surprise-earths-biosphere-is-booming-co2-the-cause/ […]
hey, here is a wordpress-plugin. with it you can reduce the co2 in the atmosphere:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/my-co2-campaign/