Global Warming: Detailed Response to Skeptics

[|darc|]

p.s. Don't pick on me for my spelling errors; (I'm a fine product of public skoolz'ssssss...) or gramer or long running scentences or just plain not making any sense.

If you cannot try to communicate your point correctly, why should anyone believe you've tried to correctly research the subject?

And if you're not going to make any sense, why even fucking post?

[zman]

Now you know how hard it is to discuss these topics. I admit I do not know everything about the subject. Neither does anyone else. There are experts and common folk. Just because I talk funny. It does not mean I'm ignorant of my position or posted articles. I put my two cents in. Take it or leave it. Everyone has different thoughts on this subject. It's obvious I pushed buttons here. That is great. It wakes people up. Not everyone thinks the same way even when presented with documents on the subject. You can not always believe what you see and read.

[DaMadFiddler]

Now you know how hard it is to discuss these topics. I admit I do not know everything about the subject. Neither does anyone else. There are experts and common folk. Just because I talk funny. It does not mean I'm ignorant of my position or posted articles. I put my two cents in. Take it or leave it. Everyone has different thoughts on this subject. It's obvious I pushed buttons here. That is great. It wakes people up. Not everyone thinks the same way even when presented with documents on the subject. You can not always believe what you see and read.

It's not so much the fact that you have an opposing view that is bugging people, it's the fact that you're running off uninformed talking points when there's information right in front of you that you could use to further your understanding of the subject. That, coupled with the fact that you make a lot of flip comments.

Opposing views are both healthy and enlightening, when they're well-informed. You are not well-informed, and the more you talk, the clearer it is that you never even bothered to read the article, which is the topic of this thread. You also make it clear that you don't desire to be well-informed, which is actually harmful rather than constructive to debate.

[AgentGreen]

Your two cents are stupid. Regardless of what "different thoughts" people have on global warming, the fact is that we are responsible for hastening an unnatural period of warming.

[Sir Savant]

Must I reiterate? Period does not a comma make.

[butters]

Now you know how hard it is to discuss these topics. I admit I do not know everything about the subject. Neither does anyone else. There are experts and common folk. Just because I talk funny. It does not mean I'm ignorant of my position or posted articles. I put my two cents in. Take it or leave it. Everyone has different thoughts on this subject. It's obvious I pushed buttons here. That is great. It wakes people up. Not everyone thinks the same way even when presented with documents on the subject. You can not always believe what you see and read.

The only way to make an effective counter-argument to actual research is the cite research to the contrary. Arguing personal beliefs against scientific research is archaic and naive.

[zman]

These are well spoken comments. Thank you.

[Ex-Cyber]

The only way to make an effective counter-argument to actual research is the cite research to the contrary.

There are arguments that can be made about the research methodology, quality of data, and whether the research being cited actually supports the assertion being made. The latter point is crucial, in no small part because detractors of mainstream scientific consensus* often rely on cherry-picked data that actually have little or nothing to do with the larger assertions that they're trying to make:

[quote="Peter Doran, lead author of the now-infamous "antarctic cooling" study,"]I mistakenly thought that over time, the misuse of our results would slowly fade, but it seems this practice has instead grown. Our results have now been used as "evidence" against global warming by Ann Coulter in her latest book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism", which followed closely Michael Crichton’s misuse of our results in his novel/congressional testimony, "State of Fear". If you search my name on the web, you will find pages of examples of misuse of our results in everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents. Not only has this abuse grown, it has evolved. Someone recently sent me a link to a web column where I was quoted as saying "the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle". As Jon Stewart might say…“whaaaa?” Not only have I never thought such a thing, I’ve definitely never said it![/quote]Whole thing here.


*: It goes beyond global warming; I've seen such tomfoolery dutifully employed by young-Earthers, anti-evolutionists, moon-landing hoax believers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and political ideologues, among others.

[AgentGreen]

These are well spoken comments. Thank you.

Go back to the sewers, you smelly little troll.

[Hawq]

Your two cents are stupid. Regardless of what "different thoughts" people have on global warming, the fact is that we are responsible for hastening an unnatural period of warming.

Its unnatural to warm up after an ice age to you? the last one wasnt that long ago in geographical terms and thats even if you dont count the mini ice age. Compared to nature our input on global warming is close to 0

[DaMadFiddler]

Your two cents are stupid. Regardless of what "different thoughts" people have on global warming, the fact is that we are responsible for hastening an unnatural period of warming.

Its unnatural to warm up after an ice age to you? the last one wasnt that long ago in geographical terms and thats even if you dont count the mini ice age. Compared to nature our input on global warming is close to 0

Both of these points are addressed, particularly here and here.

I'm beginning to wonder if *anyone* actually read the article

[Hawq]

Addressed wrongly in many cases, the bit that says 'Climate myths: We can't do anything about climate change' thats not a myth its a simple fact, the world will heat up or cool down regardless of whether we burn or smash all machines tomorrow to stop them emitting anything, I have trouble taking anything seriously when it has such bits. OK that bits starts with 'It is certainly too late to stop all climate change.' what makes them think we can even hope to stop or slow down any climate change? what would they have us do, plug up cows arses so they dont fart & release greenhouse gasses? stop breathing so we dont contribute to the CO2 levels?

[Sir Savant]

I think what people fail to realize is that all effects are cumulative. A simple analogy for us not being able to stop or slow global warming is the following:

You have a car, and it is full of gas. While driving it, you inevitably use up that gas in the production of energy yada yada yada. If you don't fill your tank up with more gas, eventually it all runs out. You can prolong the runout by filling it up, but eventually it will run out if you do nothing.

The key here is doing something. If in fact there truly exists a Global Warming phenomenon, then we must act by making cleaner technologies a requirement.

In all honesty, as long as the Scrubbers can filter out those nasty pollutants from factories and people use better catalytic converters, then I won't have to be wheezing while I am out for my morning run. Am I not the only one who slightly enjoys fresh air?

[Ex-Cyber]

Addressed wrongly in many cases, the bit that says 'Climate myths: We can't do anything about climate change' thats not a myth its a simple fact

It doesn't seem so simple to me. Please support your claim with evidence.

[Roofus]

Penn and Teller's show this week was (indirectly) about global warming. The solution they presented was to convert to nuclear power. It's clean, safe and cheap and (according to them) it would take only 400 new plants to provide all the electricity for the United States.

[Covar]

In all honesty, as long as the Scrubbers can filter out those nasty pollutants from factories and people use better catalytic converters, then I won't have to be wheezing while I am out for my morning run.

thats called getting a workout.

[JellyWarrior]

Penn and Teller's show this week was (indirectly) about global warming. The solution they presented was to convert to nuclear power. It's clean, safe and cheap and (according to them) it would take only 400 new plants to provide all the electricity for the United States.

I personally think that Penn and Teller are both full of shit, I watched a show where they absolutely trashed global warming, and encouraged people to pollute, at that point I lost all respect for them, and anything that they say.

Anything zman said.

This is in no way a personal attack on you Zman, but I am finding that the general population (which I will call "the majority") are the ones who will have the largest influence, because the majority are the people who influence elections the most.

The problem is that the majority only ever get their information from the extreme ends of the spectrum, it's either "the world is going to end next week" or it's "climate change is a myth and fixing it will destroy our economy".

It seems that the majority just want the easy way out where a) they don't have to do much about it and b) they don't have to share in the blame.
The over-used and completely ignorant phrase "The climate is changing regardless of what we do so there is no point in doing anything about it" is the quick and easy fix to the problem.

What really pisses me off about this is that it's not us who will feel the real impact of this. It's future generations and I can not believe that most people only want the easy answer, rather than doing what's best for our species (and the planet) for the future.

All most governments care about is getting into power for the next term, and if the majority of the population want the easy answer then the polly's don't have to make up good environmental policies. They don't need to, they only have 4 or 5 years to deal with the problem and in that amount of time you can't make a big enough impact to win an election, in fact you'll end up with a shortfall because the effort put into fixing the problem would outweigh the short term benefit received.

Anyhow cutting all this short, what I am trying to say is that Climate Change exists, to deny it's existence is ignorant and irresponsible. The only way that we're going to see real effort made is to PROPERLY educate the majority of the population and make them understand that it's an important issue, because only when the majority of people deeply care about this issue will politicians (the people in power) actually attempt to make a difference.

Get educated, and understand the real issues here, not the propaganda that is put out by both extreme ends of the debate.

PS. Oh I forgot to mention that we also need more people in power who actually do care about this issue and not the next election result.

[Ex-Cyber]

Penn and Teller's show this week was (indirectly) about global warming. The solution they presented was to convert to nuclear power. It's clean, safe and cheap and (according to them) it would take only 400 new plants to provide all the electricity for the United States.

Fission is only clean compared to coal, and mostly in the sense that the (extremely nasty) waste products are more readily contained instead of being spewed into the air; we'd still have to figure out what to do with them. IMO the real solution is to stop wasting so much electricity. A lot of our electricity use comes from the assumption that electricity is and always will be cheap, and therefore efficiency doesn't really matter. It's not simply a matter of personal habits, but of prevailing attitudes and designs in industry (witness incandescent light bulbs, vertical freezers, 100W video cards, LCDs that eat as much power as equivalent CRTs, and so on) . The Energy Star standards are a nice idea, but they set the bar way too low and the labeling focuses too much on the differences between extremely similar appliances rather than giving a big-picture view.

[Roofus]

Penn and Teller's show this week was (indirectly) about global warming. The solution they presented was to convert to nuclear power. It's clean, safe and cheap and (according to them) it would take only 400 new plants to provide all the electricity for the United States.

Fission is only clean compared to coal, and mostly in the sense that the (extremely nasty) waste products are more readily contained instead of being spewed into the air; we'd still have to figure out what to do with them. IMO the real solution is to stop wasting so much electricity. A lot of our electricity use comes from the assumption that electricity is and always will be cheap, and therefore efficiency doesn't really matter. It's not simply a matter of personal habits, but of prevailing attitudes and designs in industry (witness incandescent light bulbs, vertical freezers, 100W video cards, LCDs that eat as much power as equivalent CRTs, and so on) . The Energy Star standards are a nice idea, but they set the bar way too low and the labeling focuses too much on the differences between extremely similar appliances rather than giving a big-picture view.

I like graphs, so here's one:


There's no combustion from nuclear, so nothing gets released into the air, but since I'm not a nuclear engineer, I'll go along with you focus only on coal.

Coal (according to the graph) makes up a quarter of the United States' energy production. So, if we replaced that with nuclear, or a combination of nuclear and renewable sources, then there'd be a lot less crap being pumped into the air. Air pollution isn't the only issue here either: The people we're currently at war with control most of the oil. Eliminating oil and natural gas from the power grid would certainly not be a bad thing.

About the disposal of nuclear waste, they're building a facility 1,000 feet beneath the Nevada desert. You could certainly argue that it's not ideal, but I'd rather have nuclear waste (safely) stored in the middle of nowhere than fossil fuel waste pumped into the air.

(Note: I don't agree completely with P&T that fission should be the end-all be-all of energy policy. I only agree that at the moment it's the best solution; the technology is more mature, cleaner and more efficient than other alternatives. Converting to nuclear and then abandoning research into fusion, wind, water, etc would be every bit as foolish as ignoring nuclear is now.)

[Ex-Cyber]

<big honkin' pie chart>

I think that graph is describing all fuel use, not just fuel used for electricity generation. Compare with this one, which is based on DOE figures for electricity generation, and you'll see why I focused on coal. I don't see how nuclear addresses the use of fuels for automobiles, industrial processes, heating and appliances, etc.