How Silly is Climate Change Denial?

[pixelsmith]

Please go away and for 5 years (at the very least) research the actual science involved not what climate models, politicians or the UN say and come back. That would be half as long as I have studied it.


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[Burnt State]

Carbon output is the foundation of the CAGW movement. You should know this. Without that the whole scam crumbles.


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I will not bother asking questions of you for a third or fourth time - what would be the point? You're studied political response of "ask me any question" has moved out of boredom and went into trolldom long ago with your persistent inability to deal with complex challenges to your simplistic model.

Similarly, as I've outlined above, and as would any basic science textbook, the issue of how carbon works is also a highly complex, interconnected set of systems. One accepted model is that excess carbon production and an inability to remove that excess carbon can result in warming temperatures. However, as we study the planet's ability to breathe and take in excess carbon and repurpose it, and how the various positive and negative feedback loops work, we know that we still have a limited grasp on just how complex it all is.

But, contrary to your opinion, most reputable scientific bodies recognize that our excess carbon output is the most likely cause of warming trends as predicted by models - hence that ongoing discussion. These scientfic bodies responsible for the education of the planet must be, according to your simplistic and pat responses, all be engaged in a grand green conspiracy, or you need to look more clearly at your own sources of information that have dumbed down the discussion to "more carbon does not equal global warming."

Given that every reasonable scientific agency acknowledges that what we know about how carbon intake and output works is highly complex and changes according to many variables i'm going to dismss your model entirely for its outight lack of sophistication. i.e. even understanding how pine beetle infestations expand and contract and how this effects rates of decomposition and carbon output to determine if forests are net sinks or net carbon producers, and how that will change over decades due to past infestations, is still to be seen. But we do know loss of reflecting ice & blackening of snow from pollution is creating an increase in heat absorption and altering weather.

Your call for a certain increased "healthy" level of carbon ppm is so ludicrous you don't even know. We're still trying to figure out where excess carbon goes and what the impact of more carbon will be, yet you feel confident in calling for more carbon? That says it all right there - you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

So I'm going to continue to hold to the environmental position that we need to be more cautious as a species when it comes to being stewards of the planet, and that we need to beware of pro-industrialist propaganda like yours to not get caught up in delaying preventative measures to insure long term sustainability of lifeforms on earth, including the human ones.

Self-regulation and accepting mass cullings of the human herd is really the most despicable, inhuman, right wing, capitalist position I've seen presented so far in this discussion, and given the sources of your discussion, it does not surprise me at all. But it should be rejected outright.

 

[manxman]

Sorry but again you say lots, you throw out a few ad ho miens, you more than flash your Greenpeace credentials, you slip in about how complicated it all is etc etc burnt, you tell me you believe a trace gas is going to cause CATASTROPHIC warming and climate change.

Yet you struggle to admit, to even say it, that your belief is faith based, it cannot be based on the current science, because you do admit science doesnt understand our climate systems well enough, you say it below.

Similarly, as I've outlined above, and as would any basic science textbook, the issue of how carbon works is also a highly complex, interconnected set of systems. One accepted model is that excess carbon production and an inability to remove that excess carbon can result in warming temperatures. However, as we study the planet's ability to breathe and take in excess carbon and repurpose it, and how the various positive and negative feedback loops work, we know that we still have a limited grasp on just how complex it all is.


My beef has never been with global warming, my beef is with the claim CATASTROPHIC warming, and CATASTROPHIC climate change.

Why ? Because its politically motivated bullshit.


No logical person could come to any other conclusion other than bogus claim after reading the emails between the top people from thr IPCC, of which the 2 beneath make my point, if you press the point i will post dozens of similar emails to make my point.

“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden,”Jones writes in another newly released email.

Michael Mann
“I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”

chart above 150 years of actual station readings.

Wheres the warming ?.


oh heres the warming, bogus just like the CATASTROPHIC label.

And to top it off, what should be every citizens right, to educate themselves, to be able to form educated opinions, is hidden away, they are above the freedom of information acts, your tax dollar paying their fat salaries and pension funds, paying to fly them pop star style to big important conferences all around the world, but you not allowed to see the data, just the results.

Being above the FOI acts, means NO scrutiny, which means they self peer review, and the money keeps flowing, and pinochio's nose just keeps on growing.

 

[pixelsmith]

You state: "But, contrary to your opinion, most reputable scientific bodies recognize that our excess carbon output is the most likely cause of warming trends as predicted by models - hence that ongoing discussion. "
What reputable scientific body would that be Burnt?


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[technomage]

I am not an expert in this field, but I find it very hard to believe that man made global warming, even if it has some validity to it, deserves to be at the top of our priority list right now. The fact that all these politicians are going nuts over this issue, but are completely ignoring much larger issues like the Fukushima melt-down, the gulf oil spill, the GMO pollution of our crops and the poisoning of our food and water (and several other things I am forgetting to mention) makes it clear to me that it is primarily a political issue and not a scientific issue.

So even if somewhere, there is a core of truth, it has been turned into a political scam that smells real bad. When the psychopaths (i.e. the politicians) jump on an issue, you know there is an ulterior motive, and it's never good.

 

[manxman]

Yes technomage thats what governments/parties do at election time, distract from the real issues, with a bogey man issue, or as its called in the states a wedge issue.

google press uk climate change, see how many articles you can find from this month, then put it into perspecive with the amount of media, you will see clarly, it is just a mere distraction here, or its proponents being mocked or exposed for dodgy emails etc, our press love a scandal..

The bbc are the warmers mouth-piece in the uk.

 

[pixelsmith]

I find it interesting that the politicians can make some really intelligent people believe we are catastrophically affecting the planet with a .00013% of a necessary life giving trace gas. And they will defend that absurdity with great effort.


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[manxman]

Heres another challenge to any of the faithful that believe the whole world is shitting itself over global warming

Programmes - All - Channel 4

Shows | Channel 5

Categories - ITV Player

These are the 3 independent tv channels/companies in the uk, search their sites with 'climate change', 9 out of 10 documentaries will be expose's of corruption within the climate movement and IPCC.

Help yourself, see what the rest of us see.

 

[pixelsmith]

And the IPCC is supposed to be the last word on climate science. Their leader is a retired railroad engineer and soft porn writer. Lol.


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[Tyger]

@Burnt State I laud you on the density and relevancy of your posts. Nothing to equal your sharply reasoned posts has come forward from other posters (at least recently - I am well aware that anyone who does take the time to post in-depth will get flashed with blistering ridicule). There is so much I would like to respond to in what you write but time is always my problem. Thank you for taking the time to post here. In some ways it can seem like a thankless task but there is tremendous benefit to seeing your views so well reasoned and articulated.

I am someone who was a vocal critic of the computer models in the 1990's - and I still think my criticisms were well founded at the time, though I now think that I was not fully recognizing the tool's aid in short term analysis. (The computer's hitches in 'thinking' are also the scientists' hitches in thinking when you come down to it). The problem has always been the long term (as was acknowledged then but just barely). (Neither computer nor scientist are omniscient). Even now we are seeing that the pace of the system change is out-pacing the models. (It's worse than we imagined, than the models predicted, than the scientists extrapolated - we have been too conservative in our thinking based on the models). We couldn't possibly understand all the variables, and that has always been the problem with the models - though that negative can easily be factored into analysis, and now is. In effect, the models are our own limitations merely systematized. But having been a vocal critic of the models, I am now also saying that it is a grave mistake to throw out the models or disregard them outright. The computers are greatly improved as are the models - and are also more judiciously employed. The tool has it's uses.

Are we messing with that delicate situation that gave rise to us humans - yes.

Exactly so! We are now fouling the situation on a global scale - we are no longer tribes able to fold up our tents and move our herds to new pastures, away from the old midden. There are no greener pastures. When we foul the air around our cities, there is no longer any place to go with 'fresher air'. Localized changes in weather/climate are now being writ large. It's in the evidence. The 'delicate situation that gave rise to us humans' is shifting. Sure the earth will go on and develop new plant systems and new animal habitats, but humanity has a narrow band wherein it can survive. We are tipping that. Some say we have tipped it.

It's only very, very recently (in the last few 'hours' really of this societal conversation) that some have come out to say that the tipping point has been reached and passed. Literally within the last 4 or 5 years if I'm not mistaken. Initially the warnings were considered pretty 'out there' but with the accelerated pace of change it's been realized that the projections were not at all 'out there' - they were conservative. Now we have a slip to the other extreme with extinction being projected for as early as 2035 and 2040 - by a few. And just to be clear, such projections do not make said scientists 'popular' by any means. Only time will tell whether their dire prognosis is accurate - but maybe the newest version of such 'The End Is Nigh' billboards held up in the marketplace will have enough of a 'push' to change the trajectory so that the future of the planet will have greener pastures, cleaner air and a benign climate for human habitation (our children).

Are we messing with that delicate situation that gave rise to us humans - yes.Do we know to what extent - no. We can only look at what is taking place and surmise that our carbon output is playing a role in changes in weather, glaciation, pollution of water sources, acidification of sea waters and that this is also interacting with our general neglect of our role as caretakers on the planet. We pollute and piss all over it, burying our shit in any old hole in the ground or ocean making nuclear wastelands all over the place.

Yep. That's the picture.

 

[Tyger]

I offer the below because some of what is said here on this thread could be taken verbatim from the website/blog Skeptical Science (which I am faulted for quoting and linking to). The very same site - run by John Cook - that is so overtly being trashed through innuendo - seems to be directly quoted. That is, the climate denying statements seem to be actually word-for-word from the Skeptical Science site itself. See below -

What does past climate change tell us about global warming?
LINK: What does past climate change tell us about global warming?
Science says: "Scientific analysis of past climates shows that greenhouse gasses, principally CO2, have controlled most ancient climate changes. The evidence for that is spread throughout the geological record. This makes it clear that this time around humans are the cause, mainly by our CO2 emissions."
Climate Myth says: "Climate's changed before. Climate is always changing. We have had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a hundred thousand year cycle for the last 700 thousand years, and there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present despite CO2 levels being lower than they are now. More recently, we have had the medieval warm period and the little ice age."

From the above 'Climate Myth says' you can see the near verbatim phrases that have been used on this thread in one-liner posts. (I am near 99.9% convinced that Pixelsmith is using Skeptical Science as a source for his one-liner posts. )

Rebuttal from Skeptical Science - the final summation sentence says it all: "past examples of rapid carbon emissions offer no comfort at all for the likely outcome from today’s climate change."

As all Skeptical Science articles, they are worth their weight in gold for the links alone. Some comments follow.

TEXT: "Science has a good understanding of past climate changes and their causes, and that evidence makes the human cause of modern climate change all the more clear.Greenhouse gasses – mainly CO2, but also methane – have been implicated in most of theclimate changes in Earth’s past. When they were reduced, the global climate became colder. When they were increased, the global climate became warmer. When changes were big and rapid (as they are today), the consequences for life on Earth were often dire – in some cases causing mass extinctions.

"So why is the myth wrong?
"The myth is wrong for two reasons:

• First, to infer that humans can't be behind today's climate change because climate changed before humans is bad reasoning (a non-sequitur). Humans are changing theclimate today mainly via greenhouse gas emissions, the same mechanism that caused climate change before humans.
• Second, to imply we have nothing to fear from today's climate change is not borne out by the lessons from rapid climate changes in Earth's past.

"Third rock from the Sun – why we’re not deep frozen.
"A rocky planet this far from the sun should be frozen solid and lifeless at an average temperature of -18°C (0°F). The fact that it isn’t is due to greenhouse gasses in theatmosphere, mainly CO2. These atmospheric gasses have been in a delicate balance with the Earth’s oceans, the biosphere, and even the geosphere (all the rocks and sediments). Whether it was frigid ice ages or the steamy climates of the Eocene and the age of the dinosaurs, every change in the Earth (like a decrease in the rate of tectonic platesubduction or an increase in the rate of mountain building) caused a proportional change in CO2 in the atmosphere and in the oceans, and every change in atmospheric CO2 caused a proportional reaction in global temperatures, climate and ocean chemistry.

"Ice ages.
"Scientists have shown that CO2 and climate moved in lock-step throughout the Pleistoceneice ages. The ice ages were actually many pulses of cold glacial phases interspersed with warmer interglacials. These pulses had a distinct regularity caused by wobbles in Earth’s orbit around the Sun (Milankovitch cycles). When Earth’s orbit reduced the intensity of sunlight in the northern hemisphere, the Earth went into a glacial phase. When the orbital cycle brought increased the intensity of insolation in the northern hemisphere, ice sheets melted and we went into a warm interglacial. Because warmer oceans can dissolve less CO2, the CO2 levels see-sawed extremely closely with Earth’s temperature. It was a slow pace of change, taking tens to hundreds of thousands of years, and yes as the myth states, in the last million years the biggest orbit-induced cycles were every 100,000 years.

"But we know these orbital changes are not behind today's global warming. In fact our orbit dictates we should be cooling now, not warming.

"The Earth was indeed cooling over the last 6,000 years due to Earth's orbit, heading into the next glacial phase scheduled for about the year 3500 AD. But all that changed when we got to the industrial era. Global temperatures departed from that cooling trend, and instead rose parallel with our greenhouse gas emissions.

"[See Graphic in Link] Greenhouse gasses and Temperature moved in lock-step through the Pleistocene Ice Ages, controlled by Earth's orbit around the Sun (Centre for Ice andClimate, University of Copenhagen). Arrows show where levels were a few years ago, on the same scale.

"CO2 doesn’t lag behind temperature
"Until 2012, Antarctic ice core data suggested CO2 may have lagged behind the warmingtrend by hundreds of years. This was used by skeptics to question the link between CO2 and climate. More recent studies, with much more precise correlation between ice cores and global temperature records, have shown that temperature and CO2 changed synchronously in Antarctica during the end of the last ice age, and globally CO2 rose slightly before global temperatures.

"Palm-fringed Arctic and balmy dinosaurs
"It’s true that at times in Earth's past the climate has been as warm or even warmer than temperatures projected for the end of this century and beyond. Aside from some warminterglacials, the average climate was last as warm as we expect in 2100 during the Pliocene epoch – before the emergence of the genus Homo which includes you and me. In that time, summer Arctic temperatures were 3°C (5°F) warmer than today, with CO2 levels similar to today’s and sea levels were 15-25m (50-82ft) higher than today. Rain-drenched forests fringed the Arctic Ocean at the time.

"Going further back to the Eocene, the world then was very warm and humid – on average 10°C (18°F) warmer than today. Lush swamp forests fringed the Arctic, inhabited by turtles, alligators, primates, tapirs, and the hippo-like Coryphodon (just as the myth claims). Lowland Antarctica was warm and covered in near-tropical vegetation, and London was a mangrove swamp as rainforests spread across much of the planet. Going back even further to the age of the dinosaurs, life flourished in a time of high CO2 and generally warm average temperatures with high sea levels. Even Antarctica was forested and supported a healthy population of dinosaurs.

"[See Graphic in Link]CO2 and Climate Changes in the last 400+ million years (note all human existence fits under the right-hand vertical axis line). CO2 proxy data from Dan Breeker, U.Texas, originally published here. Greenhouse events in part from Kravchinsky 2012.

Sudden vs slow change.
Life flourished in the Eocene, the Cretaceous and other times of high CO2 in theatmosphere because the greenhouse gasses were in balance with the carbon in the oceans and the weathering of rocks. Life, ocean chemistry, and atmospheric gasses had millions of years to adjust to those levels.

"But there have been several times in Earth’s past when Earth's temperature jumped rapidly, in much the same way as they are doing today. Those times were caused by large and rapid greenhouse gas emissions, just like humans are causing today. In Earth's past the trigger for these greenhouse gas emissions was often unusually massive volcanic eruptions known as “Large Igneous Provinces,” with knock-on effects that included huge releases of CO2 and methane from organic-rich sediments. But there is no Large Igneous Province operating today, or anytime in the last 16 million years. Today’s volcanoes, in comparison, don’t even come close to emitting the levels of greenhouse gasses that humans do.

"Those rapid global warming events were almost always highly destructive for life, causing mass extinctions such as at the end of the Permian, Triassic, or even mid-Cambrian periods. The symptoms from those events (huge and rapid carbon emissions, a big rapid jump in global temperatures, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, widespread oxygen-starved zones in the oceans) are all happening today with human-caused climate change. The outcomes for life on Earth were often dire. The end Permian extinction saw around 90% of species go extinct, and it left tropical regions on the planet lethally hot, too hot for complex life to survive. The Triassic extinction was another, one of the 5 biggest mass extinctions in the geological record. Even in the end Cretaceous extinction, in which dinosaurs were finally wiped out by an asteroid impact, a major global-warming extinction event was already underway causing a major extinction within 150,000 years of the impact. That global warming 66 million years ago was due to catastrophic eruptions in India, which emitted a pulse of CO2 that sent global temperatures soaring by 7°C (13°F).

"So yes, the climate has changed before, and in most cases scientists know why. In all cases we see the same association between CO2 levels and global temperatures. And past examples of rapid carbon emissions offer no comfort at all for the likely outcome from today’s climate change."

 

[Tyger]

BTW Skeptical Science has a very rigorously moderated comments section. The kind of ad hominem and base debating tactics in full view on this thread are not tolerated on the Skeptical Science comment section. It's clear that such comments are deleted, but opposing views, well articulated and sourced, are not. The comment section becomes as important and enjoyable to read as the articles -

Comment: "at 13:14 PM on 30 June, 2008
"A change or two in climate history has recently been revealed indicating change happens faster than thought: Fossils Found In Tibet Revise History Of Elevation, Climate ScienceDaily (June 12, 2008) — About 15,000 feet up on Tibet's desolate Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau, an international research team led by Florida State University geologist Yang Wang was surprised to find thick layers of ancient lake sediment filled with plant, fish and animal fossils typical of far lower elevations and warmer, wetter climates.

"Greenland Ice Core Analysis Shows Drastic Climate Change Near End Of Last Ice Age
ScienceDaily (June 19, 2008) — Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two huge Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago were tied to fundamental shifts in atmospheric circulation."

With this Response from Skeptical Science: "Response: This would indicate that climate is more sensitive than realised which means the climate response to CO2 forcing will be greater than current estimations."

The response from Skeptical Science above, written in 2008, is on the order of a prediction that we now see has come to pass. The climate response to CO2 forcing is indeed greater than what was then - a mere 6 years ago - estimated it would be.


The rest of the comments are an education in themselves as the discussion proceeds around water vapor. Worth reading. It's the kind of intelligent dialog one would hope for here but is not possible because the deniers are not really debating the evidence. I am gratified to have found a site that - as one comment states: "Thanks for trying to answer science with science. Most sites on the subject are propaganda vs science or propaganda vs propaganda."

In fact, the very vehemence directed against Skeptical Science now would have me looking closer at any site or person that the deniers on this thread target. It would suggest to me that there is something of merit that is being denigrated - and rather than avoid - one should take a closer look at said site or person for some significant input.

 

[Tyger]

I am not an expert in this field, but I find it very hard to believe that man made global warming, even if it has some validity to it, deserves to be at the top of our priority list right now.

If humanity cannot survive a changed climate, doesn't it make sense that the changing climate needs to be top priority?

The fact that all these politicians are going nuts over this issue

Are they? Last I looked it was a very hard sell to get - US politicians anyway - to take any of this seriously, in the sense of going against powerful monied interests.

but are completely ignoring much larger issues like the Fukushima melt-down, the gulf oil spill, the GMO pollution of our crops and the poisoning of our food and water (and several other things I am forgetting to mention)

It's all fingers of the same hand - no one is willing to bring activities undertaken by the monied interests to heel.

makes it clear to me that it is primarily a political issue and not a scientific issue.

Policy is a political issue. The science is not.

So even if somewhere, there is a core of truth, it has been turned into a political scam that smells real bad. When the psychopaths (i.e. the politicians) jump on an issue, you know there is an ulterior motive, and it's never good.

What you are proving is that the campaign of disinformation peddled by the monied interests has been successful in scrambling the message of the science.

 

[pixelsmith]

Tyger wants to play God now? We are here because of climate change. It is the natural order of things. How arrogant can you be Tyger? Wow.


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[pixelsmith]

BTW Skeptical Science has a very rigorously moderated comments section. The kind of ad hominem and base debating tactics in full view on this thread are not tolerated on the Skeptical Science comment section. It's clear that such comments are deleted, but opposing views, well articulated and sourced, are not. The comment section becomes as important and enjoyable to read as the articles -

Comment: "at 13:14 PM on 30 June, 2008
"A change or two in climate history has recently been revealed indicating change happens faster than thought: Fossils Found In Tibet Revise History Of Elevation, Climate ScienceDaily (June 12, 2008) — About 15,000 feet up on Tibet's desolate Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau, an international research team led by Florida State University geologist Yang Wang was surprised to find thick layers of ancient lake sediment filled with plant, fish and animal fossils typical of far lower elevations and warmer, wetter climates.

"Greenland Ice Core Analysis Shows Drastic Climate Change Near End Of Last Ice Age
ScienceDaily (June 19, 2008) — Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two huge Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago were tied to fundamental shifts in atmospheric circulation."

With this Response from Skeptical Science: "Response: This would indicate that climate is more sensitive than realised which means the climate response to CO2 forcing will be greater than current estimations."

The response from Skeptical Science above, written in 2008, is on the order of a prediction that we now see has come to pass. The climate response to CO2 forcing is indeed greater than what was then - a mere 6 years ago - estimated it would be.


The rest of the comments are an education in themselves as the discussion proceeds around water vapor. Worth reading. It's the kind of intelligent dialog one would hope for here but is not possible because the deniers are not really debating the evidence. I am gratified to have found a site that - as one comment states: "Thanks for trying to answer science with science. Most sites on the subject are propaganda vs science or propaganda vs propaganda."

In fact, the very vehemence directed against Skeptical Science now would have me looking closer at any site or person that the deniers on this thread target. It would suggest to me that there is something of merit that is being denigrated - and rather than avoid - one should take a closer look at said site or person for some significant input.

Lmfao.. Dig a little deeper son. You don't know squat about SS yet.


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[pixelsmith]

I offer the below because some of what is said here on this thread could be taken verbatim from the website/blog Skeptical Science (which I am faulted for quoting and linking to). The very same site - run by John Cook - that is so overtly being trashed through innuendo - seems to be directly quoted. That is, the climate denying statements seem to be actually word-for-word from the Skeptical Science site itself. See below -

What does past climate change tell us about global warming?
LINK: What does past climate change tell us about global warming?
Science says: "Scientific analysis of past climates shows that greenhouse gasses, principally CO2, have controlled most ancient climate changes. The evidence for that is spread throughout the geological record. This makes it clear that this time around humans are the cause, mainly by our CO2 emissions."
Climate Myth says: "Climate's changed before. Climate is always changing. We have had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a hundred thousand year cycle for the last 700 thousand years, and there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present despite CO2 levels being lower than they are now. More recently, we have had the medieval warm period and the little ice age."

From the above 'Climate Myth says' you can see the near verbatim phrases that have been used on this thread in one-liner posts. (I am near 99.9% convinced that Pixelsmith is using Skeptical Science as a source for his one-liner posts. )

Rebuttal from Skeptical Science - the final summation sentence says it all: "past examples of rapid carbon emissions offer no comfort at all for the likely outcome from today’s climate change."

As all Skeptical Science articles, they are worth their weight in gold for the links alone. Some comments follow.

TEXT: "Science has a good understanding of past climate changes and their causes, and that evidence makes the human cause of modern climate change all the more clear.Greenhouse gasses – mainly CO2, but also methane – have been implicated in most of theclimate changes in Earth’s past. When they were reduced, the global climate became colder. When they were increased, the global climate became warmer. When changes were big and rapid (as they are today), the consequences for life on Earth were often dire – in some cases causing mass extinctions.

"So why is the myth wrong?
"The myth is wrong for two reasons:

• First, to infer that humans can't be behind today's climate change because climate changed before humans is bad reasoning (a non-sequitur). Humans are changing theclimate today mainly via greenhouse gas emissions, the same mechanism that caused climate change before humans.
• Second, to imply we have nothing to fear from today's climate change is not borne out by the lessons from rapid climate changes in Earth's past.

"Third rock from the Sun – why we’re not deep frozen.
"A rocky planet this far from the sun should be frozen solid and lifeless at an average temperature of -18°C (0°F). The fact that it isn’t is due to greenhouse gasses in theatmosphere, mainly CO2. These atmospheric gasses have been in a delicate balance with the Earth’s oceans, the biosphere, and even the geosphere (all the rocks and sediments). Whether it was frigid ice ages or the steamy climates of the Eocene and the age of the dinosaurs, every change in the Earth (like a decrease in the rate of tectonic platesubduction or an increase in the rate of mountain building) caused a proportional change in CO2 in the atmosphere and in the oceans, and every change in atmospheric CO2 caused a proportional reaction in global temperatures, climate and ocean chemistry.

"Ice ages.
"Scientists have shown that CO2 and climate moved in lock-step throughout the Pleistoceneice ages. The ice ages were actually many pulses of cold glacial phases interspersed with warmer interglacials. These pulses had a distinct regularity caused by wobbles in Earth’s orbit around the Sun (Milankovitch cycles). When Earth’s orbit reduced the intensity of sunlight in the northern hemisphere, the Earth went into a glacial phase. When the orbital cycle brought increased the intensity of insolation in the northern hemisphere, ice sheets melted and we went into a warm interglacial. Because warmer oceans can dissolve less CO2, the CO2 levels see-sawed extremely closely with Earth’s temperature. It was a slow pace of change, taking tens to hundreds of thousands of years, and yes as the myth states, in the last million years the biggest orbit-induced cycles were every 100,000 years.

"But we know these orbital changes are not behind today's global warming. In fact our orbit dictates we should be cooling now, not warming.

"The Earth was indeed cooling over the last 6,000 years due to Earth's orbit, heading into the next glacial phase scheduled for about the year 3500 AD. But all that changed when we got to the industrial era. Global temperatures departed from that cooling trend, and instead rose parallel with our greenhouse gas emissions.

"[See Graphic in Link] Greenhouse gasses and Temperature moved in lock-step through the Pleistocene Ice Ages, controlled by Earth's orbit around the Sun (Centre for Ice andClimate, University of Copenhagen). Arrows show where levels were a few years ago, on the same scale.

"CO2 doesn’t lag behind temperature
"Until 2012, Antarctic ice core data suggested CO2 may have lagged behind the warmingtrend by hundreds of years. This was used by skeptics to question the link between CO2 and climate. More recent studies, with much more precise correlation between ice cores and global temperature records, have shown that temperature and CO2 changed synchronously in Antarctica during the end of the last ice age, and globally CO2 rose slightly before global temperatures.

"Palm-fringed Arctic and balmy dinosaurs
"It’s true that at times in Earth's past the climate has been as warm or even warmer than temperatures projected for the end of this century and beyond. Aside from some warminterglacials, the average climate was last as warm as we expect in 2100 during the Pliocene epoch – before the emergence of the genus Homo which includes you and me. In that time, summer Arctic temperatures were 3°C (5°F) warmer than today, with CO2 levels similar to today’s and sea levels were 15-25m (50-82ft) higher than today. Rain-drenched forests fringed the Arctic Ocean at the time.

"Going further back to the Eocene, the world then was very warm and humid – on average 10°C (18°F) warmer than today. Lush swamp forests fringed the Arctic, inhabited by turtles, alligators, primates, tapirs, and the hippo-like Coryphodon (just as the myth claims). Lowland Antarctica was warm and covered in near-tropical vegetation, and London was a mangrove swamp as rainforests spread across much of the planet. Going back even further to the age of the dinosaurs, life flourished in a time of high CO2 and generally warm average temperatures with high sea levels. Even Antarctica was forested and supported a healthy population of dinosaurs.

"[See Graphic in Link]CO2 and Climate Changes in the last 400+ million years (note all human existence fits under the right-hand vertical axis line). CO2 proxy data from Dan Breeker, U.Texas, originally published here. Greenhouse events in part from Kravchinsky 2012.

Sudden vs slow change.
Life flourished in the Eocene, the Cretaceous and other times of high CO2 in theatmosphere because the greenhouse gasses were in balance with the carbon in the oceans and the weathering of rocks. Life, ocean chemistry, and atmospheric gasses had millions of years to adjust to those levels.

"But there have been several times in Earth’s past when Earth's temperature jumped rapidly, in much the same way as they are doing today. Those times were caused by large and rapid greenhouse gas emissions, just like humans are causing today. In Earth's past the trigger for these greenhouse gas emissions was often unusually massive volcanic eruptions known as “Large Igneous Provinces,” with knock-on effects that included huge releases of CO2 and methane from organic-rich sediments. But there is no Large Igneous Province operating today, or anytime in the last 16 million years. Today’s volcanoes, in comparison, don’t even come close to emitting the levels of greenhouse gasses that humans do.

"Those rapid global warming events were almost always highly destructive for life, causing mass extinctions such as at the end of the Permian, Triassic, or even mid-Cambrian[/

"So yes, the climate has changed before, and in most cases scientists know why. In all cases we see the same association between CO2 levels and global temperatures. And past examples of rapid carbon emissions offer no comfort at all for the likely outcome from today’s climate change."

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Rapid-climate-change-deadlier-than-asteroid-impacts.html

Google John "cook the books" Cook once so you quit obsessing about this con man.
I dare you


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[pixelsmith]

It is so easy to just check FACTS. Posting tons of BS just makes you look very foolish like the guy on the BM thread.


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[Tyger]

I have just received a pm asking me respond to innuendos about John Cook. I will answer the pm here. It appears there continues to be questions - innuendos - about his bona fides (I guess) - from certain one-liner posters. So - this is what I know from Skeptical Science itself, and John Cook himself -

PLEASE NOTE: That I am doing all the leg-work. The poster(s) who are making the innuendos do no more than make innuendos, supplying no more substance than the innuendos. Pretty poor. First and last time I will address it. Please also be aware that the one-liner poster is not (cannot be) reading posts. If he were - and actually digesting the content (meaning understanding the content) - some of the rejoinders could not be made since their absurdity would be evident. Clearly their absurdity is not evident - hence: either there is a limited ability to understand text or your guess is as good as mine.

About Skeptical Science
LINK: About Skeptical Science

TEXT: "The goal of Skeptical Science is to explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming. When you peruse the many arguments of global warming skeptics, a pattern emerges. Skeptic arguments tend to focus on narrow pieces of the puzzle while neglecting the broader picture. For example, focus on Climategate emails neglects the full weight of scientific evidence for man-made global warming. Concentrating on a few growing glaciers ignores the world wide trend of accelerating glacier shrinkage. Claims of global cooling fail to realise the planet as a whole is still accumulating heat. This website presents the broader picture by explaining the peer reviewed scientific literature.

"Often, the reason for disbelieving in man-made global warming seem to be political rather than scientific. Eg - "it's all a liberal plot to spread socialism and destroy capitalism". As one person put it, "the cheerleaders for doing something about global warming seem to be largely the cheerleaders for many causes of which I disapprove". However, what is causing global warming is a purely scientific question. Skeptical Science removes the politics from the debate by concentrating solely on the science."

"About the author
"Skeptical Science is maintained by John Cook, the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. He studied physics at the University of Queensland, Australia. After graduating, he majored in solar physics in his post-grad honours year. He is not a climate scientist. Consequently, the science presented on Skeptical Science is not his own but taken directly from the peer reviewed scientific literature. To those seeking to refute the science presented, one needs to address the peer reviewed papers where the science comes from (links to the full papers are provided whenever possible).

"There is no funding to maintain Skeptical Science other than Paypal donations - it's run at personal expense. John Cook has no affiliations with any organisations or political groups. Skeptical Science is strictly a labour of love. The design was created by John's talented web designer wife."

 

[Tyger]

Skeptical Science - Wkipedia
LINK: Skeptical Science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TEXT: "Skeptical Science (occasionally abbreviated SkS) is a climate scienceblog and information resource created in 2007 by Australian blogger and author John Cook. In addition to publishing articles on current events relating to climate science and climate policy, the site maintains a large database of articles analyzing the merit of arguments commonly put forth by those involved in the global warming controversy who oppose the mainstreamscientific opinion on climate change.

"Concept
"After reading a 2007 speech by US Senator James Inhofe who claimed that global warming is a hoax, John Cook created Skeptical Science to be an internet resource that examined the scientific support of the most common arguments against mainstream scientific opinion. The site currently maintains over 160 articles addressing the merit of common criticisms of the scientific consensus on global warming, such as the claim that solar activity (rather than greenhouse gases) is responsible for most 20th-century global warming. Each article, referred to as an "argument", first presents a quotation from a prominent figure who made a direct claim regarding global warming, then follows with a summary of "what the science says".

"Rather than fully qualifying each claim, the site focuses mainly on challenging it by citing counterexamples for why it is incorrect, and structuring these examples into an overall rebuttal of the original claim. The site primarily gains the content for these articles from relevant peer reviewed scientific papers. Many articles have been translated into several languages, and are split into up to three levels of technical depth. Rather than active advertising or media relationships, Cook has focused on structuring the site primarily for optimization in search engine results.

"The home page of the site also features blog posts by a number of regular and guest contributors, which may be new rebuttals of a certain argument or simply the blogger's view on a relevant climate news item. Like the rebuttals, the blog entries tend to hold a consistent tone that the scientific opinion on anthropogenicglobal warming is generally accurate.

"Projects
"In addition to uncategorized blog posts, the site has published many multi-week features that serve to give a more in-depth analysis of a particular topic. Topics which have received special attention include a feature exposing climate 'myths' purported by many US politicians, a feature examining the accuracy of past predictions made by scientists studying global warming, as well as individual features to evaluate the claims made by the most prominent individuals who criticise evidence that supports man-made global warming, including Richard Lindzen, John Christy, and Christopher Monckton.

"In 2010, a comprehensive report called The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism was made available for download from the site homepage.[8]Written by Cook and other authors on the site, the report draws from many of the rebuttals published and serves as a non-technical, easy to understand summary outlining the evidence for global warming and the flaws in many of the criticisms of anthropogenic global warming theory.[9]

"In 2011 the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand, co-authored by Cook and Haydn Washington, was published by UK publisher Earthscan.[10] The book serves to examine the ways in which denial of anthropogenic global warming is manifested through governments and the public.

"In May 2013, Cook and other contributors jointly published a paper in the journal Environmental Research Letters (ERL) examining the scientific consensus on global warming in peer reviewed papers published between 1991–2011.[11] The paper was the top downloaded paper for that week across all articles published in all of the Institute of Physics' journals,[12] and was widely cited across hundreds of newspapers, magazines, blog posts, and scientific papers from around the world.[13] It also ranked as the 11th most-discussed scientific paper of 2013.[14] The paper was awarded the 'Best article of 2013' prize by the editorial board of ERL.[15]

"In May 2013 Skeptical Science established a sister website; The Consensus Project.[16] The purpose of this website was to promote a public awareness of the reported high degree of scientific consensus around global warming, in contrast with a public perception of still widespread debate; this has been called the Consensus Gap.[17] The website was created pro-bono by design and advertising firm SJI Associates.

"In November 2013 Skeptical Science released a 'software widget' to highlight the accumulation of heat within the earth's climate systems. The widget counts up the added heat from a user definable start date using several different real-world scales of measurement - Hiroshima bombs of equivalent heat, Hurricane Sandy's, 6.0 Richter scale earthquakes, 'Big Ben's full of dynamite or millions of Lightning bolts.[18] The widget can be hosted on a range of web platforms. For each 'measure' of heat the widget 'flips' to provide a description of how the count is calculated. An associated website, 4hiroshimas.com,[19] provides background information including references to the scientific papers the count is based on. The widget was created pro-bono by Bob Lacatena.

"Reception and motivation
"Skeptical Science has become a well-known resource for people seeking to understand or debate climate change, and has been praised for its straightforwardness.[20] Marine biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg has described it as "the most prominent knowledge-based website dealing with climate change in the world",[21] and The Washington Post has praised it as the "most prominent and detailed" website to counter arguments by global warming skeptics.[22] In September 2011, the site won the 2011 Eureka Prize from the Australian Museum in the category of Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge.[23]

"Cook is trained as a solar physicist and says he is motivated by his Christian beliefs. He is one of a number of Christians publicly arguing for scientific findings on anthropogenic global warming, and is an evangelical Christian.

"Funding
Skeptical Science is affiliated with no political, business, or charitable entity.[26] The site does not contain banner ads and is funded entirely by Cook himself, with reader donations.[1] All regular and guest authors contribute strictly voluntarily."

 

[Tyger]

LINK: John Cook | Global Change Institute
"Biography: John Cook created and maintains skepticalscience.com, a website that examines the arguments of global warming skepticism. His background is in physics, studying at the University of Queensland (with post-grad studies focusing on astrophysics). After graduating, he spent over a decade working in graphic design and web programming.

"His work on climate blogging is a combination of science training, design and database programming. He co-authored the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand with environmental scientist Haydn Washington, published in 2011 by UK publisher EarthScan. His efforts have concentrated on making climate science accessible to the general public, releasing smartphone apps for the iPhone and Android phones.

"In 2011, John received an Australian Museum Eureka Award for Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge."