Dude, I'm not trolling you.

I turned your crappy analogy around on you, and you don't have a response, apparently.

So you make an appeal to your authority and claim I'm trolling.

6/3/2008 5:05:34 PM

can you find one single post that you've made in this thread that has anything to do with climate change? i just searched through the last few pages of your posts and found nothing...its sad that you continue to post here when you continue to show that you have no idea what you're talking about...all you do is belittle sources and continue to perpetuate the idea that its an open-shut case and any skeptics are idiots with agendas...while other people who understand how science works discuss the science, you come in and add nothing of value at all...its fucking pathetic...stick to talking politics and gtfo out of this thread...all you do is make smart ass replies...which would be fine if they were coupled with any display of the ability to understand and discuss science

6/3/2008 5:08:17 PM

Quote :

"what are "natural" CO2 levels?"

somewhere around 200 to 300 ppm.



when i mentioned natural quantities that are so variant that small increases are unmeasurable, i was referring to average world temperature. Increases in CO2 are not just measurable, but almost fully accountable from human activity.

We released 500 some billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increased by 500 some billion metric tons. That's simple fact - we did that.

Climate change discussion starts from there.

6/3/2008 5:31:43 PM

If only CO2 were the only variable in all of this...

6/3/2008 5:59:24 PM

^ the result would be similar?

6/3/2008 6:33:55 PM

BTW, LoneSnark, this was hilarious:



The truth hurts--and is really inconvenient!

6/4/2008 3:19:32 AM

^ You don't have to reject development to reduce emissions. We're smarter than that. As always, science provides the answer.

6/4/2008 10:02:43 AM

^ Take the Worship of Science Test

Quote :

"Are you a True Scientist? Is the Scientific Method your bible? Take this test to see if you have become one of the 21st century's millions of people who worship science like it's a religion. Or find out if you have enough common sense to believe in other things."

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=11717846394914095474

6/4/2008 4:18:04 PM

^ I don't need to take that test. I already know the answer.

If you disagree with my claims, how about some arguments against technological progress in this area? We already have various clean energy sources. Solar power, for example. The technology improves daily. Burning the dead dinosaur ain't the only way forward.

6/4/2008 4:23:21 PM

"But why not? We have tons of the stuff and it's still the cheapest form of energy. I don't know about you but I actually enjoy being the world's biggest energy consumer because it shows badass we are. Why do some deer care if we drill in their home for more?" [/LoneSnark]

6/4/2008 5:09:26 PM

Quote :

"^ the result would be similar?"

What result? The pre-formed conclusion that CO2 is the bogeyman? Yeah, you are probably right.

The point is that CO2 is NOT the only variable in this equation. AND, when we look at CO2's role, it appears that higher temperatures beget more CO2 and NOT the other way around. But, you'll conveniently ignore that fact.

6/4/2008 5:49:22 PM

^ But we know the mechanism by which carbon dioxide increases the planet's temperature. It absorbs and then sends back infrared radiation released by Earth's surface.

6/4/2008 7:42:36 PM

Quote :

"What result? The pre-formed conclusion that CO2 is the bogeyman? Yeah, you are probably right. The point is that CO2 is NOT the only variable in this equation. AND, when we look at CO2's role, it appears that higher temperatures beget more CO2 and NOT the other way around. But, you'll conveniently ignore that fact."

Fuck you wanabe troll.

I'll default to GoldenViper's comment here.

6/4/2008 8:31:10 PM

^&^^ yes but you can't go on that alone b/c you don't know how those changes affect & interact with EVERYTHING else in the climate. If it operated alone in a vacuum sure, but it doesn't.

[Edited on June 4, 2008 at 10:19 PM. Reason : k]

6/4/2008 10:14:28 PM

the sun and water vapor and methane have nothing to do with climate change, just co2...even though plants respire and absorb co2 at night

right?

6/4/2008 10:27:32 PM

still, what are you referring to? Are you saying that CO2 has some interaction with other compounds in the atmosphere that makes a big difference? I'm not aware of any such thing. Are you saying that other gases contribute to global warming? Yeah, methane makes up like 1/4th of it.

Otherwise, most of the feedback loops I'm aware of are either 1) something absorbs more CO2 because there's a higher concentration in the atmosphere or 2) increasing temperature affects something. A common example is that the ocean absorbs less CO2 because the temperature increases. But the start of everything from the #2 effect comes from the CO2 radiative forcing. That's why I was labeling that as a 'starting place'.

6/4/2008 10:29:05 PM

They've studied the other forcing elements, too.

We discussed this like 30 pages ago.

6/4/2008 10:31:54 PM

so the other forcing elements, like other greenhouse gases, and the source of heat for the entire solar system, are only worthy of a discussion 30 pages ago? we cant bring those up now? co2 is the only valid topic nowadays? just checking

6/4/2008 10:33:16 PM

So are you saying that methane does something like affect the rate at which trees photosynthesize, or something less convoluted, like making up a fraction of human caused increase in the greenhouse affect? In the latter case, you're arguing with yourself. But now I'm speculating on what you meant because you'd rather insult than explain.

6/4/2008 10:39:42 PM

i'm saying, like others have pointed out, that CO2 is far from the only factor that influences the climate and temperature...so limiting all discussion and argument to solely CO2 is misleading and irresponsible

6/5/2008 10:00:26 AM

you're still being vague and not explaining yourself. Are you currently advocating:

1. The effect other greenhouse gases produced by human activity
2. The interactions that create the compounding and feedback effects included in the academic models

?

6/5/2008 10:08:46 AM

i'm not being vague...co2 is far from the only factor in determining the climate...simply pointing out a correlation between co2 and temperature and acting like thats all you need to know (which to be fair you yourself arent doing) is misleading and dishonest...solar radiation, other gases, natural fluctuations, etc are all factors

if you're referring to my post about respiration at night, i was again saying the same thing i'm saying right now, but i was being highly sarcastic...i figured most people would catch on

6/5/2008 10:11:41 AM

we just need a really big visor, and put it in front of the earth.


i hope all you people that really buy into the global warming theories, are also pro nuclear energy. if not you are coal loving oil breeding scumbags that really don't care about the environment. we gotsta get our energy cleaner and nuclear is the best and you happen to get a HUGE amount of it.

don't give me shit about building more solar panels, and hydro dams or windmills. those don't do shit for the amount of energy we'd have to waste building it.

6/5/2008 10:16:09 AM

Here's a nice interactive feature with lots and lots of pictures to help you out, Tree:

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/environment/global-warming/gw-overview-interactive.html

The "greenhouse gases" tab will inform you about the other factors.

6/5/2008 10:42:14 AM

Quote :

"It starts with the sun"

ok I can't read this...its supposed to start with CO2...that link seems to go against the consensus...fuck your Exxon-funded links

6/5/2008 10:46:06 AM

Quote :

"i'm not being vague...co2 is far from the only factor in determining the climate...simply pointing out a correlation between co2 and temperature and acting like thats all you need to know (which to be fair you yourself arent doing) is misleading and dishonest...solar radiation, other gases, natural fluctuations, etc are all factors"

Let's say my argument had been this:

The temperature has increased in recent years. Increased CO2 caused by human activity are the likely cause. The simple radiative forcing and thus increased greenhouse effect from those levels are enough to fully account for the increase, meaning that other factors are not significant.


Aside from being wrong, this isn't what I said. But if this had been what I said, your comment would make sense. It's like when I try to explain something to you it doesn't get through because another voice in your head that I can't talk over.

6/5/2008 10:50:22 AM

Quote :

"which to be fair you yourself arent doing"

did you overlook this part?? was the voice in your head telling you to ignore the part where i acknowledged thats not what you were doing?

6/5/2008 10:51:47 AM

Who was doing it, though?

Just because we were talking about CO2 doesn't mean we don't understand that there aren't other factors.

6/5/2008 10:53:18 AM

Quote :

"simply pointing out a correlation between co2 and temperature and acting like thats all you need to know (which to be fair you yourself arent doing) is misleading and dishonest"

It's not just correlation. We know how carbon dioxide increases Earth's temperature. Unless some interaction negates this effect, it's rather straightforward. This doesn't give you the full picture, but it shows increasing carbon dioxide emission should raise the global temperature. There's no confusion about causation.

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 10:55 AM. Reason : causation]

6/5/2008 10:54:07 AM

^thats patently false..."We know how carbon dioxide increases Earth's temperature."...no, we know there is a CORRELATION between CO2 levels and temperatures...and we've also observed that the higher CO2 concentrations lag behind the rising temperatures...assuming that "theres no confusion about causation" is simply wrong

6/5/2008 11:05:56 AM

We've done some pretty large experiments on CO2's effect on temperature.

Duke actually devoted a huge section of forest to it.

It is a "greenhouse" gas. That's confirmed.

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 12:02 PM. Reason : ,]

6/5/2008 12:01:50 PM

^^ So you have evidence it doesn't absorb infrared radiation and then send it back to the surface? According to current models, without the greenhouse effect, it'd be a cold planet. If you're right, we need a new theory.

6/5/2008 2:04:19 PM

Of course it absorbs radiation and reflects some of it back to the surface...but you also said there wasn't any debate that the higher CO2 levels cause the higher temperatures, when there is much debate on that subject...ice core samples have shown temperature increases in the past with lags of about 800 years until CO2 levels began to rise...the temperatures were rising well before the CO2 levels rose

6/5/2008 2:42:30 PM

You've been clinging at straws for the last three pages.

This is getting lame.


So now you've backpedaled to the point where you're not even contesting that CO2 increases temperature?

6/5/2008 2:56:34 PM

ok, that's cool and all, the records that Al Gore presents in his movie don't prove more CO2 leads to higher temperature. We also can't say for sure any temp. increase up to now is demonstrating the effect.

But we can be pretty sure that it will demonstrate this effect.

6/5/2008 3:02:30 PM

GoldenViper said that there is no debate about co2 levels causing rises in temperature, i responded to that and explained why he was wrong...how come something that simple is always a big ordeal?

6/5/2008 3:14:10 PM

You seem to use the gerund form in "co2 levels causing rises in temperature." Do you mean past or present? Do you think co2 has caused rises in temperatures, and if not, do you think that it will?

My view:
Though relatively likely, it is statistically not significant enough, as of now, to say that the recent multi-year scale average temperature rise of the Earth has been caused by human activity emissions. Given a few more years, however, even just sustaining the current average yearly temperature would verify this is human caused beyond a reasonable doubt.

6/5/2008 3:54:52 PM

Quote :

"it is statistically not significant enough, as of now, to say that the recent multi-year scale average temperature rise of the Earth has been caused by human activity emissions"

while I might agree with you, I'm sure a lot of people on here would happily shoot this notion down on the grounds of consensus and "are you saying all the scientists are wrong"

6/5/2008 3:57:05 PM

He said that it's likely that our current rise is caused by emissions

And that our current emissions will definitely lead to further warming.


So you're agreeing with that?

Because honestly, none of that goes against the consensus. It does, however, go against all of what you've been saying.

6/5/2008 4:02:04 PM

Look, we know the mechanism. If the increased carbon dioxide hasn't caused an increase, why not? What's interfering? I'm sure it's possible there's something getting in the way, but it's not as if carbon dioxide and temperature are simply correlated. We know how carbon dioxide would be able increase temperature. That's an important distinction.

6/5/2008 4:32:41 PM

Quote :

"We know how carbon dioxide would be able increase temperature."

Imagine this...you have a vehicle with ball bearings instead of wheels that can roll in any direction out of 360 degrees...say you have 10 ropes tied to different parts of the vehicle...one of the ropes is on the due north side of the vehicle...you can't just say without a doubt that pulling on the due north rope is going to move the vehicle north, because that would be ignoring all the other ropes and the forces that pulled on them...oversimplifying one component of a system while not factoring in all the other components doesnt correctly show how a system works

6/5/2008 4:37:03 PM

"Hey, somebody's pulling the north rope at 200% normal rate"

"Hey, the car is moving North!"

Tree: "WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HAPPENING?!?!"

6/5/2008 4:51:08 PM

That's not a bad example by any means, but it would be more accurate to say there are

10 ropes on the north side
10 ropes on the south side

And what we add is nothing more than a small ribbon. In terms of heat rates or absolute temperatures the change we are dealing with is 1% range. I wouldn't even say it is 'delicately balanced' but I would say that life has gotten very accustom to it being within a very steady range.

I'm a huge fan of the radioactivity example i gave a while back, but I don't think many people are with me on that one
It's interesting for one because the radioactivity of the Earth is actually more variable than temperature. Yes, it does change with the weather, and yes we are making it much worse than it was before, and no that's not because of nuclear power.

6/5/2008 5:11:41 PM

^Whats this balance you're talking about, and life being accustomed to it? Sure we are, but we're a blip on the timeline. The worlds temperatures have been constantly changing historically.

Quote :

"My view: Though relatively likely, it is statistically not significant enough, as of now, to say that the recent multi-year scale average temperature rise of the Earth has been caused by human activity emissions. Given a few more years, however, even just sustaining the current average yearly temperature would verify this is human caused beyond a reasonable doubt."

So what was the reason for the little ice age, or the Roman warming period? Those were both huge temperature swings compared to the "average". Temperatures were pretty low in the early part of the 20th century. What was the cause for that?

Now of course I'm rehashing this we've gone over many times in this thread already. Then again nobody's had an answer for them

6/5/2008 6:36:21 PM

The burden of proof to distinguish this warming spell from a natural warming period is significant, yes, the approach has to be multifaceted. The most obvious indication is that we expect it to happen, we've been expecting it to happen. Kyoto was signed in 1996, indicating mankind was more than aware of global warming by that point, and almost all of the recent warming took place after then.

There is also some reasonable expectation that we would have been able to figure out the cause of the Roman warming period, had modern technology been around then. Right now, no strong alternative explanation for this magnitude of warming exists. In preparation, I'll go ahead and post the oh-so-convincing solar cycle graph.



How long it takes is a matter of the observer. How many years of warmth do you have to live through before you accept that it is unnatural? If the theories are correct, there should be nothing to make a decrease in temperature from human activity, so in principle, every year your confidence level would increase. So you've established a wait game. Like I said, I don't hold the temperature data up to this point to be conclusive to establish causation statistically, but it won't take many more years to convince me that satellite data is showing the onset of global warming.

While you're waiting... there are other very convincing arguments/observations.

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 7:38 PM. Reason : ]

6/5/2008 7:36:19 PM

No one's denying that the temperature has been going up recently.

6/5/2008 11:22:27 PM

More failed leadership--Rolling Stone's description--from Senate Democrats:

Senate climate bill not expected to pass

Quote :

"A Senate climate change bill appears headed for defeat today, with Republicans and Democrats sharply split over how to achieve deep cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has scheduled a 9 a.m. procedural vote on the measure. But the bill's sponsors conceded they will come up short of the 60 votes needed to head off any possible filibuster and move the bill forward."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/06/MN7G1148SR.DTL&tsp=1

6/6/2008 4:24:04 AM

it would also be nice to admit that the "warmer global temperatures" are due, in large part, to the loss of Siberian weather stations after the fall of the Soviet Union. I wonder if those stations reported temperatures that were above or below the global mean...

6/7/2008 12:46:42 AM

oh come on, thats a minor detail...

6/7/2008 1:01:07 AM

Quote :

"it would also be nice to admit that the "warmer global temperatures" are due, in large part, to the loss of Siberian weather stations after the fall of the Soviet Union. I wonder if those stations reported temperatures that were above or below the global mean..."

What the hell, guys?

I mean, really. Do you think they don't account for the loss or gain of stations?

OH THATS RIGHT, all of science is a big honkin' conspiracy to aid government in the largest power grab in American history.

You, hooksaw, and TreeTwista10 are depleting the world's rolly eyes supply.

[Edited on June 7, 2008 at 8:06 AM. Reason : .]

6/7/2008 8:06:17 AM