Global Warming: the Thread

[At Home 0]

Haha, is that the carbon credits thing? What a joke.

[EricMM 0]

Haha.

[EricMM 0]

Okay so what this is called is a tipping point, and it sucks.

 

http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/news/news_detail.cfm?id=713

 

The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

 

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

 

Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

 

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.

 

They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years.

 

Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.

 

The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in global coal reserves so there is intense interest in the stability of these deposits as the region warms at a faster rate than other places on earth.

 

Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University in Sweden, one of the leaders of the expedition, described the scale of the methane emissions in an email exchange sent from the Russian research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi.

 

"We had a hectic finishing of the sampling programme yesterday and this past night," said Dr Gustafsson. "An extensive area of intense methane release was found. At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These 'methane chimneys' were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instruments]."

 

At some locations, methane concentrations reached 100 times background levels. These anomalies have been seen in the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea, covering several tens of thousands of square kilometres, amounting to millions of tons of methane, said Dr Gustafsson. "This may be of the same magnitude as presently estimated from the global ocean," he said. "Nobody knows how many more such areas exist on the extensive East Siberian continental shelves.

 

"The conventional thought has been that the permafrost 'lid' on the sub-sea sediments on the Siberian shelf should cap and hold the massive reservoirs of shallow methane deposits in place. The growing evidence for release of methane in this inaccessible region may suggest that the permafrost lid is starting to get perforated and thus leak methane... The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed."

 

The preliminary findings of the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008, being prepared for publication by the American Geophysical Union, are being overseen by Igor Semiletov of the Far-Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1994, he has led about 10 expeditions in the Laptev Sea but during the 1990s he did not detect any elevated levels of methane. However, since 2003 he reported a rising number of methane "hotspots", which have now been confirmed using more sensitive instruments on board the Jacob Smirnitskyi.

 

Dr Semiletov has suggested several possible reasons why methane is now being released from the Arctic, including the rising volume of relatively warmer water being discharged from Siberia's rivers due to the melting of the permafrost on the land.

 

The Arctic region as a whole has seen a 4C rise in average temperatures over recent decades and a dramatic decline in the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by summer sea ice. Many scientists fear that the loss of sea ice could accelerate the warming trend because open ocean soaks up more heat from the sun than the reflective surface of an ice-covered sea.

 

Sigh.

 

See, this is what we were trying to avoid. And maybe it was inevitable, maybe even before I started doing this, before I became an adult, even before I was born this was predestined to happen.

 

But I and people like me were trying to prevent things like this, like the permafrost methane being vented, like Greenland melting, etc. And now its a mix of guilt and distress. Distress because we failed, guilt because it was our job to work to prevent it and we're failing. And our grandchildren are going to despise us for it.

[RepoMan 0]

You sum up exactly how I feel.

[NoCalMike 0]

I have a question for any conservatives or republicans or anyone in general that doesn't believe in global warming/climate change etc.....

 

Are conservative pundits capable of at least being intellectually honest when debating the subject?

 

I was at work and listening to various talk radio and I heard three different radio hosts go back to the well with this "yuk-yuk" schtick....

 

Host "Hello, so-and-so (from a cold-weather city) yer on the air"

Caller "Hi, yeah it sure is cold here"

Host "Yeah I bet it is, you might wanna ask these liberals whatever happened to global warming LOLOLOZ!!!"

 

I mean really, yes I am sure there are some people still out there that think Global Warming means every spot on the earth is going to become a volcano, but these talk show hosts are smarter then that, they know that isn't what the argument is or what the science says, but they continue to falsely put out this notion that Global Warming proponents are somehow trying to argue that we are all melting off the earth.....

[Jingus 0]

I personally don't believe in the most common model of global warming. That is, that the earth is inevitably heating up, and that it's undoubtably the fault of human beings, and that we can actually do anything to stop it. I admit that might possibly be the case, but I personally am not convinced. However, I am puzzled by the way many conservatives tend to try to explain away the motivations for people who believe in it. The theory of "scientists are only causing alarm to get government grants" is especially perplexing. Um, if they're only in it for the money, isn't there much more money available if you go work for Exxon and produce a study saying that global warming is a myth? There often seems to be a Republican belief that Democrats don't really think the world is heating up, they're just using that excuse to further some other agenda, and I've never understood the logic in that claim.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Actually, I remember Michael Savage, quite a while ago, had a pretty decent take on this. It was along the lines of, "Yeah, maybe the globe really isn't heating up, but shouldn't we at least want clean cities with breathable air?"

 

I think Al Gore is right in that the debate is really over, but the validity of it is still being questioned, due to industry marketing, much like the negative health effects of cigarettes were well into the '80s.

[EricMM 0]

Dobbs is exactly right.

 

The science is over, the only sticking point is people who don't want to believe it.

 

Dress it up in whatever other words you want to. Jingus, for instance, just because you don't "see" how it could be or "believe" that it is the way it is doesn't make all the Scientists wrong. It just makes you wrong. I will not mollycoddle you on this. I'm absolutely sick of it.

[NoCalMike 0]

I can respect debate on the issue of Global Warming, but I don't respect when people are being intellectually dishonest in their arguments. When a pundit points out that it is snowing in Michigan as proof that Global Warming is false, it just makes me want to throw something through my TV.

 

And to be honest what makes me mad is that I know damn well they personally know that what they just said has no validiity to it(whether they believe in Global Warmning or not) but they will keep saying those types of things because it will go over with the ignorant people.

[Turbo Lion 0]

That the earth's climate is changing is, at this point, unquestionable. Though there has been data presented (and I'll have to go dig it up, which might prove impossible since I don't remember where I read it) that indicates that, overall, the earth is cooling. Whichever, something is happening.

 

But what keeps me from embracing a definitive answer to the cause is this:

 

We haven't been accurately recording and measuring weather for all that long a time. Compared to, you know, how old the Earth is. We just don't have data going back far enough, before a time when half the world was covered in black fucking asphault, which is no doubt a contributing factor in large areas becoming significantly warmer.

 

Because of the lack of meaningful, comparative data I'm not comfortable declaring our measily 100 years or so of hairspray and roads with somehow seriously fucking up a planet that's been around for millions of years. It seems egotistical, to me, to declare it our fault so quickly when there are theories, just as plausible, that the earth operates on a cyclic model of heating and cooling.

 

So, as a political liberal, a personal conservative and someone interested in being able to examine as much data as possible... I'm flummoxed.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

It can happen in 100 years or so because the amount of junk being put into the atmosphere on a daily basis is absolutely staggering. Go look up the numbers.

[Turbo Lion 0]

I have no doubt. But without accurate numbers from before we started pumping greenhouse gases into the air, it seems that we're playing a guessing game.

 

We might be guessing right. I'm not saying we aren't. My conundrum is one of comparative data. How, exactly, have temperatures and the way they fluctuate been affected in the big picture?

 

The only real jumping on point for research is that there's been a change. That we can pretty much agree on. But narrowing down an answer requires more number crunching than celebritizing a particular theory.

 

I'm not trying to be difficult, but it seems to me that the absence of good data about climate behavior going back further than a hundred to two hundred years would be necessary in understand how and why things are changing now, and if something like it has happened before.

 

We know there's been an ice age. But we're not conclusively sure what caused it, last I read anything about it. Meteor? Vocano activity?

 

We don't even know what really wiped out the Dinosaurs.

 

Things like that give some gravity to the basic idea that the Earth might go through dramatic shifts over time. There's evidence that the shifts happened, but like Global Warming there's a multitude of theories about why. And we are no closer to figuring it out.

 

I mean, the weather man isn't even right 100% of the time about what the weather might do from day to day. We can make good guesses, but the Earth is far more mysterious than we want it to be.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Turbo Lion, the actual experts on this stuff are in pretty broad agreement that:

 

a) the earth is warming

b) the roots of said warming are anthropogenic

[Turbo Lion 0]

Yes, but based on data only recorded around and during our present technological influence. We have nothing to compare that to on the broad scale.

 

No matter who the fuck is saying it, their conclusions are made from an insufficient amount of data. I'm not saying its a conspiracy theory, I'm just saying it doesn't matter who says it, they only have data available to them from a timeframe that is incapable of accurately producing all the necessary pieces.

 

To truly gauge an effect on something, you need to know what it was like before X was introduced.

 

Apocalyptic climate events have happened before. Before we were introducing shit into the atmosphere. Do we just dismiss the notion that the Earth might have cycles we don't understand, despite that there is evidence to support it? Why? For a theory based on insufficient data?

 

This seems deeply unscientific to me. It's making a theory a fad without regard for a careful attempt at seeking the truth.

 

That's all I'm saying. It's a little blind to outright embrace the Man Made Greenhouse Gases theory. It's equally blind to outright embrace a cyclic model theory.

 

My point is simply this: We do not know for sure. We do not have the data to know for sure. And we can't conjure it up.

 

BUT: We ABSOLUTELY DO need to pursue clean, renewable energies and we do need to take care of the planet.

[EricMM 0]

Your desire for us to know about things we couldn't possibly know while discounting ice core samples reminds me of people who don't believe in germs because they're never personally seen them.

 

I don't want this thread to continue down the path of just me insulting the posters who disagree with the possibility of GW, but jeez.

 

To argue that there can't be global warming because we didn't have satellites in the year 3000 BC seems kind of willfully ignorant.

[At Home 0]

Your desire for us to know about things we couldn't possibly know while discounting ice core samples reminds me of people who don't believe in germs because they're never personally seen them.

 

I don't want this thread to continue down the path of just me insulting the posters who disagree with the possibility of GW, but jeez.

 

To argue that there can't be global warming because we didn't have satellites in the year 3000 BC seems kind of willfully ignorant.

 

How about to argue that the ice samples prove, almost to no doubt whatsoever, that CO2 levels are indicators of climate change? You know, because that's actually what they say.

[At Home 0]

Dobbs is exactly right.

 

The science is over, the only sticking point is people who don't want to believe it.

 

Dress it up in whatever other words you want to. Jingus, for instance, just because you don't "see" how it could be or "believe" that it is the way it is doesn't make all the Scientists wrong. It just makes you wrong. I will not mollycoddle you on this. I'm absolutely sick of it.

 

You've got to be kidding. What a bunch of fucking self-serving bullshit, Eric. How can you argue this topic with a mindset like that? That the book is totally cased closed on the scientific evidence, and that there's only stragglers, probably republican, who want to drag their feet for as long as possible? You have no fucking idea what you're talking about. None at all.

[At Home 0]

That the earth's climate is changing is, at this point, unquestionable.

 

The earth's climate has never not been changing. We're enjoying a brief period of relative climate stability, that's what has allowed us to progress past hunters and gatherers.

[At Home 0]

Turbo Lion, the actual experts on this stuff are in pretty broad agreement that:

 

a) the earth is warming

b) the roots of said warming are anthropogenic

 

Even though the average temperature of the earth has dropped in the last two years? Disregarding the natural processes that humans have no control over?

[SuperJerk 0]

Even though the average temperature of the earth has dropped in the last two years?

That's not what I heard.

[Turbo Lion 0]

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...fe-9e32747616f9

 

You can hear lots of things. Doesn't make them conclusive, accurate, reliable or true.

 

Interesting stuff. Not conclusive, but interesting data is out there.

 

Eric, I'm surprised at you. Defending theories with a lack of critical data. Science, man. There's a reason there's a method.

[At Home 0]

Eric, I'm surprised at you. Defending theories with a lack of critical data. Science, man. There's a reason there's a method.

 

You should read through the thread. He does a lot of putting his hands over his ears to drown out opposing viewpoints.

[SuperJerk 0]

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...fe-9e32747616f9

 

You can hear lots of things. Doesn't make them conclusive, accurate, reliable or true.

 

Interesting stuff. Not conclusive, but interesting data is out there.

 

Eric, I'm surprised at you. Defending theories with a lack of critical data. Science, man. There's a reason there's a method.

 

Your source is Republican Senate committee staffer's blog from a year ago that cherry-picks news articles for specific regions.

 

What about 2008? And what about the 100 years prior to 2007?

 

Global Warming is based in average temperatures of the entire globe, but every time there's a temporary lowering in one specific area, we're supposed to take this as definitive proof the entire planet is getting cooler, despite the fact that every study of the entire planet's average temperature over a prolonged period of time shows the same thing?

[Turbo Lion 0]

And what about the 200 years before that?

 

See?

 

My favorite part is that I'm not even saying global warming is wrong. I'm also not saying we shouldn't take steps to pursue clean, renewable energy.

 

All I'm saying is that it's a theory based on data with a serious deficit. It's a theory based on incomplete information. There is evidence, whether we like it or not, that suggests alternate theories.

 

I find it fascinating that we have so latched on to something that we have lost objectivity with it.

[SuperJerk 0]

And what about the 200 years before that?

 

See?

 

No, I don't.

 

 

Trends are measured by taking measurments over time. Saying one year out of 100 is too small of a sample to disprove the 100 previous years worth of measurements showing a trend. The temperature goes up and down, but overall it goes up more than it goes down. That's why you have to look at it over a long period of time, not just the last 12 or 24 months. The 200 years before that doesn't take the spread of industrialization and burning of fossil fuels that occurred in the 20th century into consideration.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

According to the survey of 1,503 adults, global warming, on its own, ranks last out of 20 surveyed issues. Here’s the list from top to bottom, with the economy listed as a top priority by 85 percent of those polled and global warming 30 percent: the economy, jobs, terrorism, Social Security, education, energy, Medicare, health care, deficit reduction, health insurance, helping the poor, crime, moral decline, military, tax cuts, environment, immigration, lobbyists, trade policy, global warming.

 

The NY Times (SHOCK! HORROR!)

 

More people blame planetary climate trends for global warming than Man Made Causes.

[Turbo Lion 0]

And what about the 200 years before that?

 

See?

 

No, I don't.

 

 

Trends are measured by taking measurments over time. Saying one year out of 100 is too small of a sample to disprove the 100 previous years worth of measurements showing a trend. The temperature goes up and down, but overall it goes up more than it goes down. That's why you have to look at it over a long period of time, not just the last 12 or 24 months. The 200 years before that doesn't take the spread of industrialization and burning of fossil fuels that occurred in the 20th century into consideration.

 

I understand trends. And what you're saying here is exactly why we need measurements from well before industrialization. What kinds of fluctuations does the planet undergo on the large scale? We know it's had massive swings before.

 

I think the thing people are missing here is that I'm not saying Global Warming is wrong. Merely that its diagnosis is based on incomplete data, so I'm hesitant to totally embrace it. Which doesn't lead to me dismissing the need to take better care of the planet in any way - I still fully support that and have never spoken against it here.

 

Functionally, I'm not pushing against the grain at all. I'm merely saying that, personally, objectively, I can't outright embrace man-made greenhouse emissions as the major cause right now because the comparative data is incomplete; we don't understand how the climate changes on a broad scale (and if you think 100 years is a broad scale, man, what?).

 

That's all I'm saying. The bizarre way everyone pushes for everyone to fully buy into it is... not objective at least and cult-like at worst. It's a fad theory. Not because of its internal consistency but because of the way it is received and pushed. It's a good theory in and of itself, but hardly as conclusive as its believers would have everyone believe. Though I am glad it has resulted in an awareness that we need to pursue better sources of energy.

 

All I've said here is that it doesn't and can't obtain enough comparative data to be truly conclusive. We need to pay attention to everything the Earth is doing, not just one thing.

 

[EricMM 0]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...9022801877.html

 

Young People to Swarm Capitol With Green Agenda

 

Thousands of young people, many of them emboldened by the 2008 presidential contest, will descend on the Capitol tomorrow to urge the government to take radical action to stem climate change and plant the seeds of a green economy.

 

Arriving Friday from every state in the union -- as well as every Canadian province and more than a dozen countries -- about 12,000 people, most between 18 and 26 years old, are in the District this weekend for Power Shift '09, a summit aimed at raising environmental awareness and lobbying leaders on green issues.

 

The four-day convention will culminate tomorrow with a rally at 11:30 a.m. on the Capitol's west lawn and meetings all day with members of Congress and their aides to press them for immediate action.

 

"We want to make sure our new president and new Congress pass bold federal energy and climate legislation in 2009 that dramatically reduces emissions and creates millions of green jobs," said Brianna Cayo Cotter, communications director for the convention's organizer, the Energy Action Coalition, a network of 50 national organizations that advocate for clean energy.

 

She said leaders "understand that young voters were a key to this 2008 election" and they are now demanding results. "We have come of age as a powerful voting constituency."

 

Among the hundreds flooding the lobby of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center yesterday -- where Power Shift hosted workshops, panel discussions and musical acts including The Roots -- were Lauralee Crain and Ayesha Siddiqi, students at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky. They have been pushing for clean energy in the heart of coal country, which, they said, means they clash with powerful pro-coal interests on campus and off.

 

They said highlighting the ill effects of strip mining and mountaintop coal removal was among their top priorities.

 

"We don't have Angelina Jolie and George Clooney posing with these devastated mountains," Siddiqi said. "We're rising to the challenge of climate change ourselves. . . . We're not waiting for the naysayers to catch up."

 

Kate Villars, a civil engineering student at the University of Virginia interested in environmentally friendly building techniques, attended a workshop about integrating the topic of energy efficiency into educational lesson plans, a step she said would improve her own program.

 

Andrew Nazdin, 20, a junior at the University of Maryland, said he is looking forward to meeting with House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) tomorrow to ask him to push for "science-based reductions in carbon emissions."

 

"He's got a room that will fit 75 of us," Nazdin said, "but we're going to bring 600 people and ask for a bigger room."

 

Boosh.

 

Powershift09.org

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Its funny cause theres gonna be about 8 inches of snow in DC tomorrow. Last time I checked it was March and 2 weeks away from Spring..

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Czech please!]

Will that Power Shift rally be on C-SPAN? They're usually really good about telecasting those interminable events where unbathed twentysomethings give rambling speeches that end in trying to get the crowd to chant trisyllabically but never get everyone on board.