What the... Snow in June, then in August!

[Sophia]

DOES anyone believe for a second that they could be corrupt???. has anyone heard of a corrupt government with scandals before??? has eveyone closed their minds to the possibility that the theory could be wrong

Who is "they"? If you're talking about certain political interests, sure. I don't disagree there is corruption in government; there always is. There are people who, for reasons of financial gain, want to pass 'green' regulations that will benefit them financially more than they will ever benefit the environment. There are also plenty of people who want to continue to run profitable, polluting industries so they will stand in the way of environmental regulation.

However, I think the science is-- at least somewhat-- independent from this. There is a lot of scientific data out there, and a lot of eyes (with a lot of different perspectives) looking at it. The scientific consensus currently points a certain way: towards temperatures steadily rising. That doesn't mean it's 100% right or 100% unassailable. Scientists don't get to vote on reality. However, it does mean that the vast majority interpret reality a certain way, that is, the majority of scientific minds looking at the same data came to the same conclusion. So, no, I don't believe that "they" (as a collective whole) are corrupt, because it's just too big and diverse of a group. Every individual scientist has their biases, sure, but those biases point in so many different directions that the overall picture ends up rather balanced.

Climate shifts are irregular, there is no pattern to them Sophia, i don't know where you got the pattern idea. it can be 30 years, 50 years, a 1000 years, it's not clockwork.

I never said anything about a "pattern." So I don't know where you got the "pattern idea."

What I actually said was that a statement like "the last climate shift was in 1977" is meaningless because the climate is always shifting. The "last climate shift" was yesterday... an hour ago... a second ago. Just (almost) imperceptibly.

[Lord_BoNes]

Just a side question: Has anyone here looked up how much "emissions" your average bovine produces on your average day? Now, think about how many cows there are in the world... it's not just the cars and industry that are heating things up

[oh_brother]

DOES anyone believe for a second that they could be corrupt???. has anyone heard of a corrupt government with scandals before??? has eveyone closed their minds to the possibility that the theory could be wrong, hahaha, yeah, i've questioned it that's for sure, but most people don't.

This is a bit of a straw man argument, implying people who disagree have not questioned what is presented. They could very well have considered those possibilities and come to a different conclusion (also, on the flip side, I don't think that disputing climate change is a niche area).

Still I accept your point that people should question things, and where the information is not definitive they should be able to withhold judgement and accept things as being at most tentatively true or false. As Bertrand Russell said "The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

@LB - yes, cows release a lot of methane. If I remember rightly Australia had put forward some law to put a tax on livestock, but it got voted down after being labelled a "fart tax".

Edit: Just happened to see this on the front page of the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/scien ... ml?hp&_r=0
While the language may (or may not) be melodramatic, the readings themselves are independent of the analysis.

[Seriously Unserious]

Edit: Just happened to see this on the front page of the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/scien ... ml?hp&_r=0
While the language may (or may not) be melodramatic, the readings themselves are independent of the analysis.

That's a pretty good article. I could always take some extra time to verify the data in it but I have no reason to believe that any of it's wrong, as I have read similar data from different sources.

Climate shifts are irregular, there is no pattern to them Sophia, i don't know where you got the pattern idea. it can be 30 years, 50 years, a 1000 years, it's not clockwork.

Of course the timing of a climate shift is irregular, and I know that was not what Sophia was referring to anyways. The conditions leading up to a climate shift are very regular and predictable. It's as simple as if A happens it will cause B to happen. For example, CO2 is a gas that traps heat energy in the Earth's system, thus if you increase the amount of CO2 present in the environment it will cause a rise in temperatures, that is a 100% guarantee, assuming all other conditions remain stable. Of course, if at the same time energy received from the sun decreases then the 2 will counteract each other to some degree but again these interactions are measurable and predictable. There are exact mathematical formulas that take into account energy received from the sun, energy emitted by the Earth, and energy deflected away from the Earth, so all you need is the data, plug it into the equation and you will have a very good understanding of what will happen.

now for that comment on possible snow here in southern Ontario for the middle of May, well, it's going to happen, they have snow for this Monday, and i have never seen snow in May, EVER. of course there has to be a CO2 story behind it somewhere

Not everything is just due to CO2. I think you are mixing up weather with climate, and while climate influences weather, they are both entirely different subjects. The weather is momentary environmental conditions like cloud cover, precipitation and temperature among other things, whereas climate is the long range trends and averages of these conditions. So you can have a climatic warming trend, yet have the temperatures briefly fluctuate downwards, such as overnight, or due to a cold mass of air moving in, yet have the overall trend of warming continue.

a simple question. is everyone here 100% sure about the CO2 AGW story to be 100% true

100% true, maybe not, but I'd say, on the balance of probabilities, that it's true enough to convince me to take action to stop it from getting any worse.

does everyone here think that there can be no other reason?

There are many reasons for climate changes, just read my earlier post where I got into that. What are the conditions present at this time? CO2 is rising more rapidly then nature alone can account for, it's at the highest levels it has been in in over 3 million years, and the rate of increase is rising rapidly. CO2 traps heat within Earth's system, thus causing a temperature rise. Energy output from the Sun has been decreasing over the past few decades, so this would cause a downward direction in Earth's temperatures as energy coming from the Sun drops. The Earth's magnetic field is slowly weakening, which would cause an increase in the Sun's energy entering the Earth's systems causing an upward pressure on temperatures, but this is a natural process that will take 1000's of years to complete so it is not a factor in the rapid climate shift that's going on right now. There are other factors as well, to be sure but they all pretty much follow the same trend, the natural factors are happening slowly, over a period of 100's or 1000's of years, or more, the human-caused factors are happening on a scale of years or decades.

Temperatures have rising by 2 degrees in the past 100 years, a rate of change the planet has never before seen by any naturally occurring phenomena short of a cataclysmic event such as a massive volcanic eruption or a massive space object impacting the planet (eg meteorite or comet), and those usually kick up debris that blocks the sun's energy, causing an abrupt drop in temperatures, usually only temporary. Eg, in 1991 when Mt Pinatubo erupted it caused a 0.5 degree drop in temperatures globally for about a year following the event. As the volcanic ash and dust gradually cleared and settled the temperatures returned to their per-eruption trends.

what man is doing is what he is suppose to do, and we're just the same as any other animal,

I've never heard of a bear being able to move a mountain with heavy machinery, or a badger build a skyscraper, or a beaver chop down 1000 hectares of trees in a few months, or a bee burn fuels at the rate of millions of tons per year, humans can do all these things and more. We haven't even begun to realize our full potential in the things we can to to control our environment to suit our needs, things no animal will ever be able to do. This is an enormous power we humans have developed for ourselves over the millennia of our existence as a species and we had better stop making excuses and start finding ways of using this power for the betterment of all life on Earth and beyond for all our sakes. We even have the power to virtually destroy all life on Earth and make a sudden and massive climate shift dozens of times over (their called Nukes), so don't tell me we are merely powerless animals acting on pure instinct. We have evolved ourselves to the point where we can and must rise above all that, and most of us have, for the most part.

i didn't expect this kind of reponses from the community. i wonder, being a skeptic of course, if this is nothig more than a play, one of how to gather the community together.

this sure has become quite the "hot" topic, hasn't it? (sorry guys, I had to slip a little bit of the Unserious in there, the Serious was getting too much screen time for my liking)

i care for people, i'd do just about anything to help others, but be damned if i am going to let fear and money control me to the point where i can't think outside the box.

I also care about others and like to help people out. I can respect your view on not letting fear and money control you. Just be careful not to go too far the other way either, to the point where you become controlled by trying not to be controlled by fear and money, and begin to be controlled by being afraid of being controlled by fear and money. It's all about finding your balance, and finding out what's true for you and holding to what's true for you even when others may try to attack you for it or make you wrong for doing so. As for me, I hold to my truths and realities and don't let anyone tell me what's true or what's real, I figure this out for myself though looking and examining things. If, in doing so, I find new info that shows me a truth or reality of mine was wrong, I'll make the necessary revisions to my truths and realities and carry on.

EDIT: wow, I didn't expect to get into such deep philosophy there, and right after that shot of the Unserious too, no less.

[Zyx]

i just had a go at the info posted Zyx and i didn't see anything new in there

I didn't selected the site for its novelty but for its concision: it goes straight to the conflicting points. This site, as the previous one I gave, contradicts precisely and briefly the main arguments denying a global warming, arguments that I saw in your posts, in which you apparently believe. (for example, the urban thermometers biasing the whole picture). It seems significant for the debate of ideas to examine the crux instead of peripheral anecdotes like the weather in your garden or mine. Not that the anecdotal weather is uninteresting by itself, but as for the global warming question, it's a drop in the middle of a statistical ocean.

Back to the debate: there are some specific contradicting points between the global warming idea and its denial. Now, when two things are contradictory, they can't be true at the same time. Do you agree with that?
This mean that each time you find a contradiction between two "visions" of reality, you get the opportunity to compare their veracity with the highest contrast one could hope for: one "side" is true, the other false.
Thus, listing the points where both "sides" are contradicting each other is critical in order to sort the ideas according to their veracity, and I think this site is helpful to focus on such points.

Take, for example, the "thermometer argument", ie that « cities are hotter points that the rest of of the planet, that they're getting hotter and hotter because of their growth, etc »: the site answers to that that

The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.

So whether there is no bias or it is insignificant, in any case the "thermometer argument" is not based on the data or on logical reasoning. You can find a very thorough analysis of the data, methods and arguments about the surface-temperature measurements here, where you can learn for example that dozens of other methods and places (even biological markers) of measurements yield the same results.

[Seriously Unserious]

That's a good article, Zyx. I'll have to revisit it later, when I'm not so tired...

but I think we've really talked the GW is man-made vs GW is naturally occurring to death here, if anyone hasn't changed their point of view by now they aren't going to, no matter what arguments anyone makes or what facts anyone presents. I'd love to hear people's ideas on how to stop global warming. Such as new technologies to pursue, or things that each of us can do about it in our own lives. One thing I'm doing, as I mentioned before, is using public transit and/or riding my bike for almost all of my commuting. I'm also continuing to learn more about the Earth, its systems and how it all works.

I've also researched about what alternative energy sources are available but just aren't being used for various reasons. For example, geothermal energy production is heavily used in areas like Iceland and many countries in South America, but not in Canada, and especially not in BC, which is a very geologically active area, located right on the ring of fire, so there should be no problems finding great sites for producing our energy in this way on a large scale, which would be a much cleaner way of producing electricity then most methods commonly in use (such as coal, oil, gas or even nuclear fired power plants.

So let's hear your ideas.

[Zyx]

Renewable energies won't solve the global warming (but if we solve it, they can prevent it from happening again).
We already released more than half the world-wide oil reserves, so even if we were to completely stop using today, which is not happening anyway, the carbon would still be in the atmosphere (instead of under the ground). Other emissions like burning forests and cows have no long term consequences as long as the trees and the grass regrow (it's just a cycle). Carbon trapped in or under the ice, though aggravating the warming trend, would also aggravate a cooling trend, so it's also reversible.


Our problem is to create massive, very long term sinkers for carbon. Which is difficult and slow because unlike O2, CO2 is a very low energy molecule that won't spontaneously interact with other molecules: you need energy to transform it.
Imagine a solar engine that each family in each country would willingly run for several hours a day for 50 years to capture carbon from the atmosphere and transform it into gallons of oil and you get an idea of the scale. Or imagine burying trees and algae kilometers deep during millions of years to put back this carbon where it was. Those are the quantities we need to get rid of, and we'd need our carbon-capturing technologies (whether chemical or organic) to be a hundred-fold more efficient than today to reverse the trend in less than 10 000 years... (And we're progressing too slowly, if you ask) Or we need a physical process to move the CO2 from the atmosphere to space or to Earth's mantle, but we're talking about a planetary engineering level that we're still hundreds of years short to attain even if we had a constant progress (which is not a given with the catastrophic events which are coming).
As long as our resources, economies and politics are managed by politics and corporations, which are short-sighted, nothing of the sort will happen, not even remotely.
So, unless we harness some massive energetic processes (like nuclear energy at huge scales) to remove the carbon from the atmosphere, I'd say we won't avoid the massive rewrite of our planet habitat.

[Chaos-Shaman]

well Sophia, i read into the statement "The climate is not some binary thing that remains constant until it changes abruptly" well in fact it is exactly that, we'll never know when it will change and there is no way we can know the end results. we won't know when or why but we can try to guess it with our limited means, but as i have stated before, you can't put a number on nature, not possible. we do our best but obviously we are wrong often enough to cast doubt on any theory, since it's all still theory. maybe it'll be dark matter that changes it all, or little black holes that reside in every space, we don't know.

and THEY is a general term, and i wouldn't waste any more time naming institutional groups, nobody wants to hear that and i already gave an example of what i mean like:
"you should take a stab at reading some climatologists opinions, check out Roy Spencer who is a principal research scientist at the university of Alabama in Huntsville, a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA. he leads the NASA aqua satellite program. he has written several books on GW."

nobody wants or can use that type of info unless they read it, it's why i don't post charts and if you check this thread you'll see i don't post links very often, so THEY is a general term, i can write a shit load down if you want.

[Chaos-Shaman]

yes bones, that's right. we should be looking into the methane gas which is 27 times more a greenhouse gas than CO2 is, but i doubt we're gonna get people to eat wheat for the rest of their lives and even wheat pollutes, all the nitrogen and potasium and phosphorus that can kill contributary streams to our lakes. not much can be done here and i see this as more of a problem than CO2 is because where do they grow things, it would be in the best parts of land. i hate when THEY chop the forests down in the jungles, this is more scarry to me. a note to that is, people will do anything for money for food and clothes, and now for their ipods and small handsets so THEY can play DM of course

[Chaos-Shaman]

Zyx,i did say this, the wording is bad, right from the get go "The best available evidence suggests " word phrases like this can't be used, as i am suggesting they are wrong, see what i mean. i also have read this material before, kinda a repeat. i have been reading the same stuff far too long now which is why i look deeper into the fjords of not accurate info. i could do a power word search and show you if you like. i do like the first guys comments, this is where i like to read, other peoples opinions which i have debated why hundreds of others on this thanks to todays chat engines, here is the guys post:

"In all seriousness, it’s foolhardy to think climate models are precise. That doesn’t mean global warming isn’t real or not a concern, but the end-of-the-world prophecies are a gross exaggeration. As much as both sides try to deny it, this debate is rooted more in politics than science. Just as it is silly to deny the potential impact of a warming climate on our way of life, it is equally absurd to subscribe to the most dire theories. Let’s be honest, 99.99% of us do not intimately understand the science involved, but that doesn’t mean an unskeptical appeal to authority is required. Global warming has become a cottage industry, so let’s also not be naïve."

[Chaos-Shaman]

"It's as simple as if A happens it will cause B to happen. For example, CO2 is a gas that traps heat energy in the Earth's system, thus if you increase the amount of CO2 present in the environment it will cause a rise in temperatures, that is a 100% guarantee, assuming all other conditions remain stable. Of course"

of course, yes, and it's impossible to have that equation. it's not true SU, nature is unpredictable and impossible to label it like that. you may or may not understand this next statement and it took me years to understand its meaning:

1+1 does not make the same 2, thanks to time and gravity in nature. even an identicle twin is not identicle 100% , nope.
you can't compare apples to apples in other words because there is no two the same. numbers are in nature all around us, none are perfect either, that's what drives nature and change, we'd still be nothing if it were not for that principle. so the only thing constant is change, they don't stay the same. i hope nobody thinks that our climate will remain the same, it will not! and nobody knows whether we're suppose to be doing what we're doing or not. i wouldn't try to answer that, it's a no win answer.

[Chaos-Shaman]

SU, i know the difference between weather and climate for goodness sakes

[Chaos-Shaman]

we think we're smart, but are we really???
SU, if you want a better look at what is in store for you, it can be achieved if you're willing to go that far. i don't reccomend this to many others but if you're curious enough and want to explore the other side, read about DMT, learn about the spirit molecule.

[Chaos-Shaman]

ok Zyx, now please check out Roy Spencer ""you should take a stab at reading some climatologists opinions, check out Roy Spencer who is a principal research scientist at the university of Alabama in Huntsville, a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA. he leads the NASA aqua satellite program. he has written several books on GW."

he is head of the AQUA SATELITE PROGRAM and he has something very different to say, he uses the sat stats and then he goes on to say about how the CAUSE and EFFECT misunderstanding. he'll show how different clouds change the climate, a real good read and up your ally on information, that's if you believe our 30 years of sat dats. i just don't pick a side like a hockey team, i read the info to further my understanding. maybe i'll go on amazon and point out the books for you and sometimes they have a bit to read out of it. i didn't just think AGW from man was false. i maintain that there is some effect, but that's suppose to be. life is not a straight line, now if we could find our purpose on this planet, you may find we're doing what is expected of us. we consume, destroy, create, kill, etc, you know what i mean, just like any other organism but we're suppose to have some kinda control and we're the masters of our planet, but i know that's not true, heh, it is not true but we like to think we're that important. humans do not control nature, nature controls them. the planet doesn't need saving, WE NEED SAVING, the earth will go on without us. so it's not to save the world, it's to save ourselves and that's not happening because nobody cares enough to stop what their doing. oh i don't blame anyone, they have no choice. to think man is not natural is not wrong. death, destruction, decay, rebirth, is all in nature, not just man.
i try to make my garden as nice as possible, but i can't stop nature from trying to eat it, or that mean storm cloud that dropped hail on my garden only, or stop a kid from raiding my garden, or prevent weeds from taking over, i expect it to happen, i don't expect to control it, put up fences, poison the ground, all because of the way i wanted it. it is impossible, and i see climate change the same way. if we took away our ability to use energy, it would solve the pollution problem yes, but we'd still be weilding a club, our pop would be much smaller. who wants to go back to that, NOBODY DOES.

[Chaos-Shaman]

nice link Zyx, that one will take a while to read.
it'd take nothing short of a miracle to change our ways. everything needs energy. we're sustainable with Adam and Eve until we procreate. it is better to see this as inevitable, nothing short of divine interevention (comet, asteriod, meteorite, disease, famine, war etc) before we stand as one and simplify our lives, get rid of these horrible machines that many use everyday, and your're right, it's not going to happen, now that's a practical statement, one i believe.

who here thinks that burning fossil fuels will detroy the planet????? anyone????

[Sophia]

well Sophia, i read into the statement "The climate is not some binary thing that remains constant until it changes abruptly" well in fact it is exactly that, we'll never know when it will change and there is no way we can know the end results. we won't know when or why but we can try to guess it with our limited means, but as i have stated before, you can't put a number on nature, not possible.

If this is a 'fact' then please produce evidence that somehow contradicts all of those graphs out there showing climate changing slowly over time.

But anyway. The very existence of modern science and technology suggests that it is possible to, at least approximately, "put a number on nature." If natural laws were completely incomprehensible and unpredictable we could never tame electricity and convey it through wires and create devices to utilize it in interesting ways, nor could we understand physics to the degree to launch ourselves into space, nor could we comprehend the chemical reactions going on in our own bodies to the degree that we could create medicines to help remedy problems, and so on. No, we'll never be 100% certain, but that doesn't mean it's appropriate to throw your hands up and act "not 100%" is somehow equal to 0%.

you should take a stab at reading some climatologists opinions, check out Roy Spencer who is a principal research scientist at the university of Alabama in Huntsville, a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA. he leads the NASA aqua satellite program. he has written several books on GW.

Yes, I think reading Roy Spencer is a good idea. Then, read a few sources that disagree with him-- the vast majority of climatologists disagree with him, so it won't be difficult to find some.

[Lord_BoNes]

Is this the part where I sit down with a bucket of popcorn and cheer people on? Hehehe

[beowuuf]

No, it's not.


SU had a good idea of shifting the discussion on to a parallel subject. Going round and round and trying to convince people to shift their core beliefs seems to be a less good one.

[Lord_BoNes]

Yeah, I must admit that this war has been raging on for quite a bit now. I've been wandering when a ceasefire is gonna be called.

[Seriously Unserious]

"It's as simple as if A happens it will cause B to happen. For example, CO2 is a gas that traps heat energy in the Earth's system, thus if you increase the amount of CO2 present in the environment it will cause a rise in temperatures, that is a 100% guarantee, assuming all other conditions remain stable. Of course"

of course, yes, and it's impossible to have that equation. it's not true SU, nature is unpredictable and impossible to label it like that. you may or may not understand this next statement and it took me years to understand its meaning:

1+1 does not make the same 2, thanks to time and gravity in nature. even an identicle twin is not identicle 100% , nope.
you can't compare apples to apples in other words because there is no two the same. numbers are in nature all around us, none are perfect either, that's what drives nature and change, we'd still be nothing if it were not for that principle. so the only thing constant is change, they don't stay the same. i hope nobody thinks that our climate will remain the same, it will not! and nobody knows whether we're suppose to be doing what we're doing or not. i wouldn't try to answer that, it's a no win answer.

... last time I checked when taking calculus for my Associate Degree, 1+1=2 is always true. I took a class on weather and climate, and in it I learned about how to calculate what range of temperatures are likely due to the combination of incoming and outgoing energy. What is energy? Simply put it is defined as

The capacity or power to do work, such as the capacity to move an object (of a given mass) by the application of force. Energy can exist in a variety of forms, such as electrical, mechanical, chemical, thermal, or nuclear, and can be transformed from one form to another. It is measured by the amount of work done, usually in joules or watts.

Source.

All energy also performs on a regular, recurring pattern, and the speed, or length of one cycle of this pattern is referred to as the energy's wavelength. Starting at the shortest wavelength energies we have Gamma Rays, X-Rays, Ultraviolet (UV) Rays, Visible Light, Infrared (IR), Microwave, Radio Waves. The bulk of the energy the Sun outputs is in the Gamma Ray though Visible Light bands, and the bulk of the Earth's energy output is in the Infrared band. As the Sun's energy progresses through the Earth's atmosphere some of it is absorbed by particles in the air, including the air itself, and these particles release that energy in the Infrared band, which, in a fluid like air or water, we perceive as heat if this energy is present, or cold if absent. when the Sun's energy reaches the Earth's surface some of it is absorbed into whatever it contacts, while the rest is reflected back out away from the Earth (this precess is measurable and each substance has a predictable ratio of energy absorbed to energy reflected which is referred to as its albedo, and the higher the albedo, the more reflective the substance is and the less energy it absorbs. Snow and ice, for example, have a very high albedo rating, therefore most of the energy that hits these surfaces is reflected back out into space. Meanwhile, the Earth is also generating its own energy, which, as I mentioned before, falls mostly within the IR band, which must, along with the sun's reflected energy, pass back up through the atmosphere, being absorbed and reflected around along the way (gasses like methane and CO2 will tend to absorb, reflect and/or otherwise send the energy back towards the surface, where the process repeats again, and again, basically the energy gets trapped. Aerosols, dense cloud cover and other things can act in the opposite way, reflecting the Sun's energy out to space before it even passes though much of the air, if any at all, and so reduces the amount of energy present in the Earth's system at the surface, which is what affects us so what we are usually most concerned with.

Now that we've covered a few basics I can get into how a formula can be use to estimate how much energy is present at any given location at any given time. As long as you know how much air the Sun's energy must pass though to reach the surface, what type of surfaces it will be impacting (ie water, ice, pavement, trees, etc) and what is present in the atmosphere (eg cloud cover, greenhouse gas levels, aerosols and other reflective/blocking particle levels, etc you can estimate both how much of the sun's energy will reach the surface, how much will be absorbed and radiated as heat, how much will be reflected up and leave the system, and how much will be reflected down or absorbed before it can leave the system, and how much the Earth generates, and how much of this will be radiated out of the system, absorbed by the system or reflected back into the system, so you can calculate approximately how much energy is present, and thus how estimate what temperatures we are likely to see, or at least what direction the temperatures will be going in. Of course factors like wind and precipitation also play a role here but again, their affects are known and predictable. How else can we get such accurate weather forecasts, which accurately predict the weather up to a week or more in advance? If all this was truly completely unpredictable and unknowable then forecasting the weather would be impossible.

I will not say anything more about this unless it's to answer a specific question, since I think I've said all that really needs to be said here on this topic.

To make a long story short, it is possible to estimate the amount of energy present at the surface of the Earth, it's all based on measurable and known substances and particles with known and predictable behaviors and known energy patterns, with predictable and known behaviors.

[Seriously Unserious]

Renewable energies won't solve the global warming (but if we solve it, they can prevent it from happening again).
We already released more than half the world-wide oil reserves, so even if we were to completely stop using today, which is not happening anyway, the carbon would still be in the atmosphere (instead of under the ground). Other emissions like burning forests and cows have no long term consequences as long as the trees and the grass regrow (it's just a cycle). Carbon trapped in or under the ice, though aggravating the warming trend, would also aggravate a cooling trend, so it's also reversible.


Our problem is to create massive, very long term sinkers for carbon. Which is difficult and slow because unlike O2, CO2 is a very low energy molecule that won't spontaneously interact with other molecules: you need energy to transform it.
Imagine a solar engine that each family in each country would willingly run for several hours a day for 50 years to capture carbon from the atmosphere and transform it into gallons of oil and you get an idea of the scale. Or imagine burying trees and algae kilometers deep during millions of years to put back this carbon where it was. Those are the quantities we need to get rid of, and we'd need our carbon-capturing technologies (whether chemical or organic) to be a hundred-fold more efficient than today to reverse the trend in less than 10 000 years... (And we're progressing too slowly, if you ask) Or we need a physical process to move the CO2 from the atmosphere to space or to Earth's mantle, but we're talking about a planetary engineering level that we're still hundreds of years short to attain even if we had a constant progress (which is not a given with the catastrophic events which are coming).
As long as our resources, economies and politics are managed by politics and corporations, which are short-sighted, nothing of the sort will happen, not even remotely.
So, unless we harness some massive energetic processes (like nuclear energy at huge scales) to remove the carbon from the atmosphere, I'd say we won't avoid the massive rewrite of our planet habitat.

I agree, they won't undo the damage already done, but they will stop further damage. If you do some research, you will be able to find tons of experimental technologies for producing clean, renewable energy. Many won't work, but some will, and in fact do. Of course, such technologies would end the strangle hold big oil has on energy, so there are vested interests, with a lot of money at stake, in keeping such technologies out of the public eye, at least until those vested interests have extracted all the profit they can out of the petroleum as an energy source racket and can find some way to profit out of these new technologies, or we finally get so desperate that humanity as a whole puts a stop to this limiting and ultimately destructive way of thinking and just gets these new technologies onto the marketplace and we redesign our economies to do without the burning of fossil fuels.

The hard part is that so many people believe that the only energy source that we have or could ever possibly have is the burning of fossil fuels, and so many people also believe that if we stopped the burning of fossil fuels that we would either suffer a cataclysmic economic collapse or go back to being nomadic hunter/gatherers running around the wilderness with clubs and spears living as primitives again. None of this needs to be true, if we manage the changeover right we can have a relatively painless transition without loss of prosperity or loss of lifestyle. If we do nothing but business as usual, we will certainly run into all of these fears when the oil reserves run out and burning fossil fuels is simply not an option any more.

[Chaos-Shaman]

the question is, what is mans purpose? is man going through what is suppose to happen? or is man suppose to comply to science and hold science as GOD? not a chance.

i found people lose what it's all about when it goes to deep into explanations, the more complicated it's explanation the further it drifts from the truth, those nono words get in it.

THE LEAFS WON, yeah man, my sons are extremely happy bout that... they had to endure cold conditions, SNOW in the middle of May during the day in downtown Toronto, just crazy. i have seen frost a couple times in the last 4 decades, but not snow. this morning is a very cold one. going to break record cold temps.

in reply to: we can make a difference, ok you believers, time to hand over your keys and take that bus, you'd do it if you believed in AGW from CO2, or at least i expect people to do the correct moral thing, sure hope those who care do exactly that, bet ya don't.

i will bet anyone that there will be no considerable rise in water levels in the next 20 years, i also bet that our temps will remain near the same as it is now, MAYBE even a bit cooler, anyone care to bet? i think i can live that long

on energy, the only way to make people happy is to kill man, reduce man to near zero (except them of course) and then we'll be fine. this kind of thinking is draconian... but this is what others tell me, that's their best solution, dopes, good thing their parents didn't think that way.

[Chaos-Shaman]

in Canada yesterday, the first unofficial day of summer, we had snow in 6 of the 10 provinces, brrrrrrr.

[Seriously Unserious]

Yeah, the weather's been ridiculously odd so far this year, and I'm sure most of us can agree to that at least, regardless of our beliefs on other climate issues.

The temps have been unusually cool here on the wet coast too. Just not to the point of snow... now THAT would be something, if it were to snow in Vancouver in May...

[Chaos-Shaman]

we had snow in southern Ontario, right in Napanee, on the lake for god sakes and usually the lake prevents that. we had frost again this morning, i am glad i have not done our annual spend 200 bucks on flowers, it would have been gone for sure, but there is some nice weather coming, finally can plant and sit outside and have a beer.

[Chaos-Shaman]

i was doing a little research into jokulhaups and i thought maybe this would be a good start in the understanding why glaciers and ice sheets melt, i thought this one showed the explanation of volcanoes having much to do with it, please have a read, it's not a thousand articles, it's just one and an easy read

http://www.medindia.net/news/Volcano-De ... 0702-1.htm#.

[Seriously Unserious]

That's an interesting possibility.

The mid-Atlantic ridge does come close to the coast of Greenland on the northeastern portion of the island, and there's also a well-known hot spot nearby, right along the ridge as well, in Iceland.

Of course, melting ice sheets would contribute to climate change in several ways:

1- less ice means the Earth's surface is less reflective overall, contributing to higher temperatures. More fresh water in the oceans will both cause sea levels to rise, inundating vulnerable low lying coastal areas, and also could disrupt ocean currents such as the gulf stream, a warm current that redistributes warm Caribbean waters to the north and contributes the the relatively mild climates of the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, Iceland, and northwestern Europe. A slowdown of this current could actually trigger an ice age. On the other hand, a speedup of this current would make the North Atlantic reagion warmer, contribute to even faster melting of the ice and speed up global warming, but temp arround the Caribbean could drop slightly, and rainfall would also likely drop as ocean temps would fall off as more warm water would be carried north.

[Chaos-Shaman]

right on SU, there is a warm current that flows right into the Arctic. it has been active there for a while, like that skul volcano that shut down a good chunk of EU flights.

hey, you're doing the reading, thanks man. it does lead to other reasons, not just CO2, which happens anyway. there is a ton more to read on this, would take a lifetime to go through it all though nobody really knows yet, it's too early to be handling over the keys and our money to organisations that thrive off of money. i know through my daughters university that many of the courses where she is now located are environmental, and there has been a hudge increase in people who have gotten masters and phds in that area, she says they are out of work. so you can see now the demand for those jobs is putting pressure on GW, and i want people to care and love the world, but there is a point where things go wrong, again the money is the problem. i want a clean and friendly environment too, but i know better than to just nod my head and agree that easily, if i'd done that i'd not advance very far, christ, i would not have unlocked something now would i have. thanks for reading that, it brings me great pleasure you somewhat see what this crazy shaman sees

[Chaos-Shaman]

so basically under the Arctic some scientist think the crust is thinner, hotter near the surface, this is all due to polaric activities, so this thinning crust is warming the waters beneath the ice, and they have discovered only recently volcanoes under the Arctic. there was a documentary on TV on scientists diving under the ice to find these weird holes in it, heat had been rising and melting long holes through the ice, it looked like stelactites sp?. the methane they're finding under the ice is not from melting permafrost, there is no permafrost on the ocean floor. just on land such as Greenland i found the more i looked into the reason, the more i found deceit and deception was getting involved, and these so called alarmist scientists on AGW who are legit are mixed in with this deception making it harder to reach the truth. again money, power and control are involved. people really want to do the right thing, but this same thought is what is being taken advantage of, these people don't know any better, they're not going to spends weeks investigating it. so that's why we have the divide between what is the actual cause. they are going to do the cut and dry method and say "if there is an increase in CO2 production, it must be the CO2 that's causing it" because they can visually see this and they feel guilty they produce it. it is ALL PSYCHOLOGICAL, playing with good peoples minds.

[Seriously Unserious]

While what you say is true, it is also true that if we keep relying on the fossil fuels for the majority of our energy needs we will continue to pump noxious gasses into the atmosphere we breath, which will change the composition of our atmosphere and most likely to the detriment of the current forms of life on the planet, including us. Burning fossil fuels also does free up a huge amount of carbon and/or that was trapped within the fuel, which will react with oxygen in the air, forming CO2 gas, which does retain heat more effectively then other gasses, so increasing the amount of CO2 gas in the atmosphere will contribute to warming up our climate. It is most certainly not the only factor, but it is a factor. The more of these factors in climate change we can get under control the better it is for the current batch of life forms on Earth, ourselves included.

CO2 also isn't the only problem from burning up fossil fuels at the rate we are doing so, there are many poisonous gasses that are also released into the air we breathe as the fossil fuels are burned. These poisonous gasses get into the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and ultimately into us, where they slowly kill us over time. I'm not saying we need to go back to the stone age, that's just not practical or desirable, but we do need to research into other ways of getting our energy that do not pollute, poison or change our climate. Such methods exist, we just need to put the time and effort into finding them and putting them to use.