How Credible is This "Global Warming?"

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Dark Knight Gafgar

And then they started warning about global warming in the 80s, and then it was global cooling again in the 90s, and now it's global warming. 2012 isn't going to be the end of the world: it's going to be when the tree-huggers start whining about global cooling again.

The global warming idea had enough support in 1997 for 160 countries to bother negotiating the Kyoto Protocal, so I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that global cooling was in during the 90s.

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

I distinctly remember talk about the "freezing of the world" and the "upcoming ice age" in the 90s. Or maybe that was the 1190s I'm thinking of... hrm.

[Vexx]

You're probably confusing/conflating the "nuclear winter" scenarios postulated during the Cold War with climate science. Those ideas were pertaining to the world after a major nuclear exchange. There was also some public debate by science in the late 60s about whether we were leaving an ice age, entering one, or just having a nice balmy lull for a few dozen centuries.

One issue is that any theories before the 1980s did not take into account nonlinear systems theory (or "chaos theory" as it is popularly called) which postulates that complex nonlinear systems like to pool in a region of stability but can be tipped into a new region by inputs to the system. The "tipping point" is accompanied by violent disruptive behavior until the new region of behavior is stabilized.

That's a terrible explanation but I don't have time to write a book and there are many great explanations already out there on the Net/wiki space.

[MeoTwister5]

Originally Posted by Vexx

You're probably confusing/conflating the "nuclear winter" scenarios postulated during the Cold War with climate science. Those ideas were pertaining to the world after a major nuclear exchange. There was also some public debate by science in the late 60s about whether we were leaving an ice age, entering one, or just having a nice balmy lull for a few dozen centuries.

One issue is that any theories before the 1980s did not take into account nonlinear systems theory (or "chaos theory" as it is popularly called) which postulates that complex nonlinear systems like to pool in a region of stability but can be tipped into a new region by inputs to the system. The "tipping point" is accompanied by violent disruptive behavior until the new region of behavior is stabilized.

That's a terrible explanation but I don't have time to write a book and there are many great explanations already out there on the Net/wiki space.

I think the popular misonception a lot of people have with Chaos Theory is that... well as the name negatively implies, once the an outside influence is imposed on a initially stabilized environment, the force is enough to tip the scales towards a chaotic system that is "destructive" of the compnents involved. I'm not a physics major but I'm pretty sure destruction isn't always the result of a destabilized system.

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

Originally Posted by Vexx

You're probably confusing/conflating the "nuclear winter" scenarios postulated during the Cold War with climate science. Those ideas were pertaining to the world after a major nuclear exchange.

Contrary to popular opinion, my face, and my Mother/b/oard, I am not a retard. And the Cold War was over by the 90s anyway.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

I think the popular misonception a lot of people have with Chaos Theory is that... well as the name negatively implies, once the an outside influence is imposed on a initially stabilized environment, the force is enough to tip the scales towards a chaotic system that is "destructive" of the compnents involved. I'm not a physics major but I'm pretty sure destruction isn't always the result of a destabilized system.

No, "destruction" is almost never the result. Its simply a new region of stability that is entered. What is not clear is whether that new region of stability (weather patterns, climate) is suitable for *us* or not. "destruction" depends on your point of view. What we're seeing is increasing intensity and variance in storms during all seasons -- be they blizzards, tornado counts, hurricanes, etc.

Contrary to popular opinion, my face, and my Mother/b/oard, I am not a retard. And the Cold War was over by the 90s anyway.

I didn't call you one... your label not mine. I simply was referencing that many people (especially on these forums) are too young to have been around in the 60s/70s/80s and often have a somewhat blenderized understanding of what happened when. The nuclear winter scenario was an item of the 70s. A distorted and incorrect reference to it was USED in the 90s by the "status quo faction" to try and puncture the growing evidence of climate change data.... much like creationists keep fighting a version of evolution theory that never really existed. Its an easier strawman...

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I'd like to point out that the economic effects of ecological regulations aren't that clear cut. Especially for those of us living in rich countries. Note that I'm not talking about specific regulations, which may of course be perverted by special interests.

Certainly, there are taxes, making things more expensive, at least in the short run. But:
- after the initial investments, we'll save energy.
- they'll create jobs - in R&D, and in construction (to convert existing buildings to more ecological designs). Most of our economies are already about keeping people busy making things we don't really need, but want (like, say, computers and internet access). The only difference is that eco-jobs may actually be a matter of need.
- they'll favor local production, since transportation releases a lot of CO2.

The last part of local production will lead to isolation and damage the world economy, because world trade is the thing that allows countries to import and export according to individual needs.

I dread to make do with a life without moe.

Originally Posted by Mentar

4) There are really people on this forum who believe that one can read degree centigrade temperature differences from 400.000 year old ice cores

Damn, the climatologists are really stupid. They had the answer in front of their noses for so long...

The principles of Thermodynamics and Chemical equilibrium would like to have a word with these guys who made these graphs. The CO2 concentration present in ICE is due to the unique molecular structure of water in solid state, and although ice is an insulator, it does not mean it is wholly non-permeable regardless of thickness.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

The last part of local production will lead to isolation and damage the world economy, because world trade is the thing that allows countries to import and export according to individual needs.

I dread to make do with a life without moe.

International trade won't disappear. Just become a tad more expensive. Besides, data costs little enough to transport.

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I didn't call you one... your label not mine. I simply was referencing that many people (especially on these forums) are too young to have been around in the 60s/70s/80s and often have a somewhat blenderized understanding of what happened when. The nuclear winter scenario was an item of the 70s.

>still implying I can't tell the difference between legitimate data on weather patterns and hypothetical nuclear war scenarios

Originally Posted by Vexx

A distorted and incorrect reference to it was USED in the 90s by the "status quo faction" to try and puncture the growing evidence of climate change data....

When in doubt, accuse the other side of falsifying and/or distorting data. Good thing upstanding climatologists fully aware of the dangers of global warming don't do things like that!

Oh wait

Originally Posted by Vexx

much like creationists keep fighting a version of evolution theory that never really existed. Its an easier strawman...

When in doubt, #2: blame the Fundies. Even if they have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Especially if they have nothing to do with the topic at hand. But this topic is about global warming (or more specifically how, much like one of New Orleans' levies, it just doesn't hold water), grasshopper, not evolution. Back on topic.

There's a definite difference between worrying about pollution (which I can get behind to an extent) and scare-mongering to promote a political agenda. Unless it's my political agenda, anyway, and there's been too much of a lack of Confederate flag-waving from the global warming community for that to be the case.

[ChainLegacy]

I wasn't alive when the 'global cooling' story broke in the 70's, but from what I've read it was nothing like the current global warming issue. 'Global cooling' did not have the widespread support from a variety of fields of science that global warming has. Instead, it was a fringe theory that the media turned into one of their traditionally sensationalized stories to grab peoples' attention.

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

'Global cooling' did not have the widespread support from a variety of fields of science that global warming has.

Widespread, perhaps, but not unchallenged. There's just as much evidence against global warming as there is for it, though given how global warming activists like to strong-arm and silence and even argue for criminalizing and imprisoning critics and skeptics, I can see how you might not be aware of that.

[Nightbat®]

Y'know, we might as well call global warming "God" and crucify every blasphemer that will not believe in him

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

International trade won't disappear. Just become a tad more expensive. Besides, data costs little enough to transport.

A whole lot more. Besides, transport routes will be dogged by national claims because there is little mutual interest in sharing such areas anymore.

There might be a data tax once moe becomes a legally licensed commodity.

Originally Posted by Dark Knight Gafgar

[COLOR="Green"]
When in doubt, accuse the other side of falsifying and/or distorting data. Good thing upstanding climatologists fully aware of the dangers of global warming don't do things like that!

Oh wait

When in doubt, #2: blame the Fundies. Even if they have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Especially if they have nothing to do with the topic at hand. But this topic is about global warming (or more specifically how, much like one of New Orleans' levies, it just doesn't hold water), grasshopper, not evolution. Back on topic.

There's a definite difference between worrying about pollution (which I can get behind to an extent) and scare-mongering to promote a political agenda. Unless it's my political agenda, anyway, and there's been too much of a lack of Confederate flag-waving from the global warming community for that to be the case.

Few questions :

1. Which school are you from? Did you even attend school?
2. Did you study Physics and Chemistry?
3. Do you even bother to even check the most basic wikipedia?

It seems that your post is more inclined towards an argumentum ad hominem rather than one from a knowledge-based point of view.

If you can, prove that Vexx is being part of the blame game. Wake up your idea.

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

I wasn't alive when the 'global cooling' story broke in the 70's, but from what I've read it was nothing like the current global warming issue. 'Global cooling' did not have the widespread support from a variety of fields of science that global warming has. Instead, it was a fringe theory that the media turned into one of their traditionally sensationalized stories to grab peoples' attention.

In fact, it is isolated data measured from a different part of the world. But scientifically, it does actually make sense if you view the entire Earth as a system and applied dynamic equilibrium to it.

Kind of funny though, but I guess that is how chemistry works.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Mentar

You know... the next time you begin another tirade about the awesomeness of the US, reread this last chapter. I think it's the most pitiful whining I've heard in a long while. So you're telling me that you're close to dying over there? Then I'd say you have some real problems to address in your country.

lolwut

You must be confusing me with someone else. I'm hardly flag-waving here (or anywhere else); I know America is fucked up in all sorts of ways.

I made one troll post, which I might add was deleted by a mod, sarcastically protesting someone's troll thread about how stupid Americans are, simply because I'm tired of hearing Europeans smacktalk us, especially after the US basically saved your asses from the Nazis in WW2.

ohshit I godwin'd the thread

Look, I probably hate America's government and administration just as much, if not more, than you do (but likely for completely different reasons).

Because of what my government did to spark the housing crisis, then proceed to bail out the fuckups in the banking and auto industries, the economy is shit, I have been out of work for close to a year. Because my government thinks it can control the economy (newsflash: it can't, and trying just makes things worse) my life right now basically depends on the kindness of other people who still have jobs. I'm not really taking it very well.

So forgive me if I come across as a bitch; right now I'm not in the best of moods, and hearing people talk about the end of the world and how (extremely expensive) measures need to be enacted right now or the world will end... really doesn't sit well with me.

Yeah, more carbon dioxide in the air traps more heat in the atmosphere. We all learned that in grade school. Arguing with that is stupid. I'm not even arguing that we're polluting the Earth--hell, it's blatantly obvious when you have a miles-wide island of plastic bottles and trash floating in the Pacific Ocean.

All I'm saying is those "corrective measures" should be scrutinized very closely. More oversight. More discourse. Less consensus. I don't trust consensus at all, especially when it's obvious that most environmentalists take these things as articles of faith rather than scientific hypotheses that may or may not be factual.

I don't see anything else other than government fat cats trying to get even fatter at the expense of their own citizens.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Dark Knight Gafgar

...

I strongly recommend you stay away from any high school debate team... that was the most irrelevant set of responses I've seen in this thread

I based the response on your *question* about global cooling. You failed to show that you had any deep recollection of events. Your followup posts do not clarify your level of understanding. Your own posts, so I won't bother to requote them. You seem to be fishing... Is this related to your "trolling" sig?

When in doubt, accuse the other side of falsifying and/or distorting data.

Except that there is no doubt. A scientific discussion wasn't happening -- a concerted effort by the energy industry was in play to cast FUD - it still is. People are entitled to have their own opinion but not their own set of "facts".

When in doubt, #2: blame the Fundies. Even if they have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

So you document you don't understand the concept of an analogy. There was no blame of the "fundies" as you call them.... only noting the same tactics are in use in both matters. I could also use the tobacco industry's several decade effort to derail the discussion of cigarettes as an analogy.

grasshopper

I suppose, next, you'll call me "sonny". Amusing but trying to turn the discussion into an emo-fest is also a debate fail.

Most of the concerns being expressed being expressed by most players now are in the realm of:
1) how will this impact the economy of the country I live in?
2) how will it affect *my* life? (or *my* business?)
3) legitimate concerns about power shifts and different forces maximizing their advantages to profit off the various 'solutions' proposed.

Disruptive events, whether man-caused or natural, tend to upset the status quo. There aren't just "two sides" in this matter -- many factions are seeking to maximize their situations or their control. As hard as the energy industry is arguing against changing the playing field or in preventing new technologies from emerging -- they're also moving to make sure they're in control of those technologies or tilting the field in their favor. The factions that want a "nanny state" are likewise making moves of their own. Those people that actually simply want to *solve* the situation have to contend with those issues as well.

[Nightbat®]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

[B]
I don't see anything else other than government fat cats trying to get even fatter at the expense of their own citizens.

Ahhh, yes "Eco-tax"

It's supposed to make me less 'pollutant'

So by now everything is "Eco-ed"

yet there aren't more busses or trains, not even on time, still as crowded
and still taking 5 times longer to reach my job, getting more expensive by the year
and guess what, I still have to go to work everyday

Hybrid cars? Eco subsidy on buying one: gone
automotive tax is going from weight/price to distance traveled (so Hybrids are taxed as heavy as every other thing on the road)

Discount on putting solarpanels on your roof? Gone
Discount on "Green power" from the powercompanies? Gone
Screwed energysaving lighbulbs everywhere, result: raising energyprices (and with that the VAT and Eco-tax went up)

Basicly it comes down to "We won't applaud you living 'cleaner', we're just charging you more for it"

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Nightbat®

Basicly it comes down to "We won't applaud you living 'cleaner', we're just charging you more for it"

This man wins e-cookies.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Nightbat®

Ahhh, yes "Eco-tax"

It's supposed to make me less 'pollutant'

So by now everything is "Eco-ed"

yet there aren't more busses or trains, not even on time, still as crowded
and still taking 5 times longer to reach my job, getting more expensive by the year
and guess what, I still have to go to work everyday

Hybrid cars? Eco subsidy on buying one: gone
automotive tax is going from weight/price to distance traveled (so Hybrids are taxed as heavy as every other thing on the road)

Discount on putting solarpanels on your roof? Gone
Discount on "Green power" from the powercompanies? Gone
Screwed energysaving lighbulbs everywhere, result: raising energyprices (and with that the VAT and Eco-tax went up)

Basicly it comes down to "We won't applaud you living 'cleaner', we're just charging you more for it"

Aye, Nightbat underscores and lists examples of the clear hypocrisy on the part of the "nanny state" faction -- those that want to require individuals to bear the costs without rewards to do so. This is the same sort of nonsense as "No Child Left Behind" (mandates without communal/govt support) and he's rightfully annoyed about it. It never fails that when trying to "balance" the budget or address large issues ... both sides of the aisle in the US seem to eliminate that which would help the individual rather than take on the well-funded lobbyists for the big ticket items. Something is fundamentally broken in the US system if you're Joe Public and it isn't a right/left problem.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Nightbat®

Basicly it comes down to "We won't applaud you living 'cleaner', we're just charging you more for it"

This is called : profit motive. To maintain their profit they have to charge more, government introduces discounts to promote their political motive of "eco-friendly".

It kind of sucks that it is all of such motives are inherently personal, the way Vexx puts it in the previous post.

[synaesthetic]

Vexx, you bring rational serenity to every thread you post in.