Cap and Trade and Yes and No

[On Guard for Thee]

So your definition of destroying the planet is making it uninhabitable for humans? What is your perception of the global planetary conditions necessary to achieve this?

Maybe you could ask all those folks in S. Florida who will be getting their feet wet as their property disappears for starters.

[eyeball]

Global Warming will not destroy the planet before then.

No one is seriously claiming global warming will destroy the planet, I don't even think a nova could do that - all that's really being suggested is that the changes accruing to that warming could be too great a challenge for our civilization to overcome.

But who knows maybe after a few thousand years we'll be right back on top again. In any case God has a new world ready for us so...

[-1=e^ipi]

Maybe you could ask all those folks in S. Florida who will be getting their feet wet as their property disappears for starters.

So people in South Florida getting their feet wet = Earth becomes uninhabitable?

[-1=e^ipi]

No one is seriously claiming global warming will destroy the planet

On guard for thee just did. Alarmists are consistently making absurd claims about the impacts of global warming. Obama claiming that the Earth will boil over is a good example.

[On Guard for Thee]

So people in South Florida getting their feet wet = Earth becomes uninhabitable?

I find S. Florida uninhabitable most of the time anyway, but thats another story.

[On Guard for Thee]

On guard for thee just did. Alarmists are consistently making absurd claims about the impacts of global warming. Obama claiming that the Earth will boil over is a good example.

Nope I didnt say that.

[ToadBrother]

So people in South Florida getting their feet wet = Earth becomes uninhabitable?

No, but major changes in rain belts means millions may have a hard time growing crops, some regions may become arid, and others enjoy a far greater abundance of precipitation.

The chief problem is that we have all these nation states. Will the US allow its food security to be placed in the hands of its northern neighbor? Will nations that have been bless with better arable lands let millions of refugees flood into their borders?

There's at least some evidence that the major migrations out of the Asian Steppe, which saw the Mongols build the world's largest empire, and saw substantial parts of the Far East, Middle East, and even Eastern Europe, subjected large waves of invaders, were set off by climactic changes. We're not just talking Mongols either, we're talking the Turks and other related tribes appearing on the scene.

[ToadBrother]

On guard for thee just did. Alarmists are consistently making absurd claims about the impacts of global warming. Obama claiming that the Earth will boil over is a good example.

So read what the scientists say. And they certainly don't think it merely means Florida gets wetter. If the alarmists are guilty of hyperbole, the deniers are guilty severe understatement.

[eyeball]

On guard for thee just did. Alarmists are consistently making absurd claims about the impacts of global warming. Obama claiming that the Earth will boil over is a good example.

No, you guys just jump on off hand conversational statements and absurdly treat them like they're scientific/legal principles or definitions that need to be back-ed up and adjudicated in some peer review process.

[Keepitsimple]

So read what the scientists say. And they certainly don't think it merely means Florida gets wetter. If the alarmists are guilty of hyperbole, the deniers are guilty severe understatement.

And I guess the "truth" lies somewhere in between, doesn't it?

[-1=e^ipi]

Will the US allow its food security to be placed in the hands of its northern neighbor?

This question relies on the premise that US food security is going to be at risk due to global warming, which I question greatly. California may become drier, but then Texas should become wetter. Most of the US will become wetter, you have the CO2 fertilization effect, longer growing seasons in most of the USA etc.

There's at least some evidence that the major migrations out of the Asian Steppe, which saw the Mongols build the world's largest empire

The mongol invasion of Eurasia coincided with the the medieval warm period and a time when Mongolia was warmer and wetter than it is today. One of the reasons that the mongols had the ability to do what they did is because the climate changed to allow them to be more prosperous. During this time you also had vikings colonizing Greenland and growing crops there.

So read what the scientists say.

I read science directly, as well as perform my own analysis. Scientists are flawed people and just blindly following the conclusions of someone with the title 'scientist' is giving in to the appeal to authority fallacy. The scientific method is not compatible with logical fallacies.

If the alarmists are guilty of hyperbole, the deniers are guilty severe understatement.

Fortunately there are positions that exist outside of the alarmist-denier false dichotomy.

And I guess the "truth" lies somewhere in between, doesn't it?

Doesn't 'between' suggest that the space of positions on climate change is one dimensional (or can be well represented by a projection onto a single dimension)?

Edited April 16, 2015 by -1=e^ipi

[ToadBrother]

And I guess the "truth" lies somewhere in between, doesn't it?

Science doesn't deal in truth, at best it deals in provisional truth. But there is enough data out there to suggest that not reducing CO2 emissions is already having impacts, and those impacts will become greater as time progresses. There is no controversy in the scientific community; even AGW's most strident opponents in the climatology community rarely if ever publish papers destroying AGW theory, but rather seem to reserve their critiques for the Wall Street Journal and other fossil fuel-friendly media outlets.

There is no lack of debate of what the medium and long term effects will be, or what the timing will be. Those are the real controversies, but the idea that man-made CO2 emissions are having a significant effect on climate is simply not controversial at all.

I spent a decade debating Creationists, and pretty much ever attack on the climatology community I'm seeing now is a retread of Creationist attacks on biologists and other evolutionary researchers. The same claims of evil cabals of scientists promoting false theories to get grant money, the same claims that the exceedingly small group of skeptics with anything approaching expertise in biology are being stifled, the claims that consensus is somehow anti-science, similar long lists of "scientists against the theory" that end up containing engineers (see the Salem Hypothesis), medical doctors and other people that are not scientists, or if they are, are researchers speaking far out of their fields of expertise. Whether it's HIV-causes-AIDS deniers, tobacco cancer link deniers, or the host of pseudo-skeptics and promoters of junk science, it's just the same game over and over again.

[TimG]

But there is enough data out there to suggest that not reducing CO2 emissions is already having impacts, and those impacts will become greater as time progresses.

Impacts sure. But so far there are no measurable effects that are a concern to anyone nor is there is any guarantee that these effects will become a concern in the future. The belief that warming is necessarily bad is a religious belief. It is not a belief founded on science.

but the idea that man-made CO2 emissions are having a significant effect on climate is simply not controversial at all.

No one in this thread is arguing that there are no effects. The question is whether we should care about the effects and whether it is more cost effective to adapt to changes instead of engaging in a futile effort to prevent them from occurring.

I spent a decade debating Creationists, and pretty much ever attack on the climatology community I'm seeing now is a retread of Creationist attacks on biologists and other evolutionary researchers.

All this statement does is shows you are an buffoon who has not taken the effort to understand the various arguments put forth by skeptics.

I will give you a hint: you cannot find out what skeptics say by reading claims about those arguments made by alarmists because alarmists invariably misrepresent the arguments made. If you want to understand the arguments you have to actually read the arguments themselves.

It is worth noting that skeptics have been saying the the climate models exaggerate the amount of warming for the last 5 years or more by comparing the model outputs to the actual data. The scientific community is finally starting to acknowledge that the skeptics were right and are trying to explain the mismatch.

Edited April 16, 2015 by TimG

[ToadBrother]

Impacts sure. But so far there are no measurable effects that are a concern to anyone nor is there is any guarantee that these effects will become a concern in the future. The belief that warming is necessarily bad is a religious belief. It is not a belief founded on science.

No one in this thread is arguing that there are no effects. The question is whether we should care about the effects and whether it is more cost effective to adapt to changes instead of engaging in a futile effort to prevent them from occurring.

All this statement does is shows you are an buffoon who has not taken the effort to understand the various arguments put forth by skeptics.

I will give you a hint: you cannot find out what skeptics say by reading claims about those arguments made by alarmists because alarmists invariably misrepresent the arguments made. If you want to understand the arguments you have to actually read the arguments themselves.

Fortunately I don't read what alarmists say. I don't care what Al Gore says. I don't care what David Suziki says (again, that whole issue of a scientist speaking far out of his area of expertise).

[TimG]

Fortunately I don't read what alarmists say. I don't care what Al Gore says. I don't care what David Suziki says (again, that whole issue of a scientist speaking far out of his area of expertise).

Well your posts show you are pretty selective when it comes to listening to what scientists say (i.e. you only listen to alarmist claims) so I am curious where you get your ideas from.

BTW: since you seem to think expertise is important then why do you care about the opinion of a climate scientist on the best way to deal with CO2 emissions? They are not experts on energy production or engineering or economics - expertise that is required to determine the most cost effective course of action.

Edited April 16, 2015 by TimG

[Keepitsimple]

There is no lack of debate of what the medium and long term effects will be, or what the timing will be. Those are the real controversies, but the idea that man-made CO2 emissions are having a significant effect on climate is simply not controversial at all.

That's generally a true statement - but with a couple of qualifiers. "Significant effect" is not an absolute measurement. As to what the ratio of natural/human factors is - many would say that 15 or 20% is "significant" while others would say 50% is significant. The fact that humans are affecting climate is not debatable - but their contribution to the overall warming is.

As for medium and long term effects - every single estimate/projection/forecast is shrouded terms like "could be", "might", "as much as", etc.

[-1=e^ipi]

But so far there are no measurable effects that are a concern to anyone

If there were no measurable effects that are of concern to anyone, then people like Juddith Curry and Nic Lewis couldn't obtain estimates of climate sensitivity from the instrumental record.

nor is there is any guarantee that these effects will become a concern in the future.

There is no guarantee that the sun will continue to rise. Yet people expect it to. I think your claim is worded too strongly.

I don't care what David Suziki says (again, that whole issue of a scientist speaking far out of his area of expertise).

You shouldn't dismiss David Suzuki's arguments because David Suzuki isn't a climate scientist.

You should dismiss David Suzuki's arguments because the arguments are nonsense and not supported by physics or empirical data.

Please treat science as a methodology, not some sort of institution where 'truth' is determined authoritatively.

[-1=e^ipi]

"Significant effect" is not an absolute measurement. As to what the ratio of natural/human factors is - many would say that 15 or 20% is "significant" while others would say 50% is significant. The fact that humans are affecting climate is not debatable - but their contribution to the overall warming is.

More than half of warming since WW2 is due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. If you want me to give you a more accurate number, I could obtain it from my Van Hateren impulse response model that I used to estimate climate sensitivity from the instrumental record.

As for medium and long term effects - every single estimate/projection/forecast is shrouded terms like "could be", "might", "as much as", etc.

Science deals with uncertainty. I don't think it is fair to criticize scientists for being honest about their uncertainty. Although, it would be better if organizations like the IPCC simply made statements such as 'our 95% confidence interval is X' rather than 'X is very likely'.

[TimG]

If there were no measurable effects that are of concern to anyone, then people like Juddith Curry and Nic Lewis couldn't obtain estimates of climate sensitivity from the instrumental record.

Warming has been measured. Is warming to date a problem? Not by any evidence that is available to date. The sea level has risen. Is the sea level rise to date a problem? Not by any evidence that is available to date. The implicit assumption in all alarmist arguments is change is bad. no change is good. This assumption is simply wrong. Change may be bad or may be good or (more likely) a combination of both. For measurable effects to be a concern there must be demonstrably bad consequences.

There is no guarantee that the sun will continue to rise. Yet people expect it to.

There is a logical reason to assume the sun will rise. It is illogical to assume that warming will be bad. It could be bad - that is possibility that cannot be discounted - but it is wrong to say it will necessarily be bad. Edited April 16, 2015 by TimG

[Keepitsimple]

More than half of warming since WW2 is due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. If you want me to give you a more accurate number, I could obtain it from my Van Hateren impulse response model that I used to estimate climate sensitivity from the instrumental record.

No need. I prefer the Deusenberg Feedback Echo-loop. But thanks.

[Topaz]

Do any of you think that since the world was covered by ice and then the warming period came melting the ice , that the Earth would continue to warm up and will sometime, burn itself out?? What man is doing to the environment is just bring the end sooner??

[-1=e^ipi]

Do any of you think that since the world was covered by ice and then the warming period came melting the ice , that the Earth would continue to warm up and will sometime, burn itself out?? What man is doing to the environment is just bring the end sooner??

Not really sure what you mean by 'burn itself out', but in 5 billion years the Sun will be a red giant and should be large enough to devour the Earth. Is that what you mean?

[eyeball]

What do you mean when you say 'Texas will be wetter' in the context of us adapting and telling us there's little to nothing to worry about?

Why will a wetter Texas be any better than a dry one and when will it be better, next year, decade, century, kilo-year, kilo-century? This generation, the next or 1500 from now? You adaptionists seem to throw your numbers out in a way that don't relate to any meaningful human time scale like a business cycles or human life-span for example. What evidence do you have that adapting will be the pleasant benign experience your disdain for alarmists and lack of concern implies?

[bush_cheney2004]

....What evidence do you have that adapting will be the pleasant benign experience your disdain for alarmists and lack of concern implies?

...only the past 400,000 years of ice age and interglacial periods. We even got TV and airplanes.

[On Guard for Thee]

Not really sure what you mean by 'burn itself out', but in 5 billion years the Sun will be a red giant and should be large enough to devour the Earth. Is that what you mean?

Or it might be a white dwarf.