Obama global warming statements today (Page 2)

trinnas - 2012-11-15 9:54 AM

CO2 does not make the air nasty it is a natural byproduct of many things including respiration.  It is also essential in photosynthesis by plants and algae.  Another huge "greenhouse gas" is water vapor btw not really nasty unless you live in FL in the summer.

GomesBolt - 2012-11-15 10:12 AM

I was thinking more along the lines of SOX and Mercury. 

trinnas - 2012-11-15 9:02 AM

I think we have different definitions of "strong science", if by global warming you mean anthropogenic climate change.  When you study ~ 400 or less out of the last 4,000,000,000 years, or 1/10,000,000 or the earth's climate history, then make predictions based on models without any ability to design controlled experiments to prove your hypothesis, calling it strong science is a little misleading.

Birkierunner - 2012-11-15 10:32 AM See the attached article...I won't comment on it so you can form your own opinions.  I have copies of most of the papers in the lit cited if anyone is interested. 

GomesBolt - 2012-11-15 9:33 AM

 

That is shocking.  WOW, proof...

(whispering) uhh, what am I looking at???

BrianRunsPhilly - 2012-11-15 9:27 AM

You can do controlled experiments. You can study the effect of increased C02 on heat retention in a laboratory environment. The difficult part is extrapolating that to the earth, because there are so many variables we do not understand. We really do not have a good handle on the extent of CO2 sinks, for example.

It is pretty clear that C02 does cause heat retention. It's also pretty clear that C02 levels have risen due to fossil fuels, population, etc. Global warming is a fact. I don't see that as something to question. What is in question is how much of that is due to geological cycles versus human intervention. Personally I'd rather we be proactive, since we humans have to live here for a while.

BrianRunsPhilly - 2012-11-15 10:27 AM

You can do controlled experiments. You can study the effect of increased C02 on heat retention in a laboratory environment. The difficult part is extrapolating that to the earth, because there are so many variables we do not understand. We really do not have a good handle on the extent of CO2 sinks, for example.

Agreed, Climate science is on the fuzzy edge of hard science.  It is not uncommon that you have drugs that work in invitro studies that fail in invivo studies or clinical trials due to the increased complexity of the system.  Extrapolation rarely works with great efficiency when going from microenvironments to complex systems

It is pretty clear that C02 does cause heat retention. It's also pretty clear that C02 levels have risen due to fossil fuels, population, etc. Global warming is a fact. I don't see that as something to question. What is in question is how much of that is due to geological cycles versus human intervention. Personally I'd rather we be proactive, since we humans have to live here for a while.

Those facts are not what I question.  Concurrence does not prove causality.  The earth has been significantly warmer in the past without human intervention so to say this warming cycle is more than nominally the result of fossil fuel use is not something one can call strong science.  As for humans we have only been here for a few minutes before midnight on the geological time scale, how long we will remain is a mystery.  I understand the desire to be proactive but many of those proactive steps have real world economic consequences, not just for us but for all nations.  The more our costs go up the less disposable income and goods we have to send to 3rd world countries to combat hunger for instance.

tuwood - 2012-11-15 7:42 AM

Believe it or not I'm actually with you Brian. My only thing is I am ok with being proactive where it makes economic sense.  For example, If there's a market for electric cars then by all means make electric cars.  If there is no market for them and it requires Billions of dollars of tax dollars to make it viable then I'm not for it.  Same thing with wind power.

I would personally love to have an all electric car and a fuel cell/solar panels to run my house, but it's just a lot cheaper to use gas and buy power from the power company.

My rub with Obama's statements (and others) is the alarmist nature where we "have to do it" or the world will end based on what I feel is a scientific uncertainty.

BrianRunsPhilly - 2012-11-15 7:27 AM

You can do controlled experiments. You can study the effect of increased C02 on heat retention in a laboratory environment. The difficult part is extrapolating that to the earth, because there are so many variables we do not understand. We really do not have a good handle on the extent of CO2 sinks, for example.

It is pretty clear that C02 does cause heat retention. It's also pretty clear that C02 levels have risen due to fossil fuels, population, etc. Global warming is a fact. I don't see that as something to question. What is in question is how much of that is due to geological cycles versus human intervention. Personally I'd rather we be proactive, since we humans have to live here for a while.

tuwood - 2012-11-15 10:42 AM

Believe it or not I'm actually with you Brian. My only thing is I am ok with being proactive where it makes economic sense.  For example, If there's a market for electric cars then by all means make electric cars.  If there is no market for them and it requires Billions of dollars of tax dollars to make it viable then I'm not for it.  Same thing with wind power.

I would personally love to have an all electric car and a fuel cell/solar panels to run my house, but it's just a lot cheaper to use gas and buy power from the power company.

My rub with Obama's statements (and others) is the alarmist nature where we "have to do it" or the world will end based on what I feel is a scientific uncertainty.

spudone - 2012-11-15 8:11 AM

So you're good with taking away all the subsidies and tax breaks from Big Oil, too then?

spudone - 2012-11-15 10:11 AM

So you're good with taking away all the subsidies and tax breaks from Big Oil, too then?

Left Brain - 2012-11-15 1:26 AM

The Earth will take care of itself, no matter how arrogant man is to think he can affect it's course.

Climate change?  You mean like before man was even here?

I'm always amused and amazed at the people in today's world who somehow think they are witnessing something in this planet that is unique to our time.  They need to get over themselves.....this is nothing new to the Earth.  

Climate change is, in fact, a constant for billions of years.  

As far as Man vs. Earth...............sure, we're in the drivers seat....you know, we've been here sooooo long. 

crusevegas - 2012-11-15 10:16 AM

I think one of the things we can do or maybe two things would be 1. stop allowing a tax deduction for dpendants, if more people contribute to AGW no sense in giving people money for procreating. 2. Stop welfare based payment on the # of dependants.

 

crusevegas - 2012-11-15 9:16 AM

I think one of the things we can do or maybe two things would be 1. stop allowing a tax deduction for dpendants, if more people contribute to AGW no sense in giving people money for procreating. 2. Stop welfare based payment on the # of dependants.

 

jmk-brooklyn - 2012-11-15 9:32 AM I don't think you want to create a disincentive to procreate altogether, but I could see placing limits on the number of dependants for which you receive tax deductions or benefits, or perhaps a sliding scale, creating a substantially diminishing rate of return past a certain threshold.

tuwood - 2012-11-15 8:44 AM 

I'm not familiar with all the tax breaks/subsidies that are available to them, but as a general statement I'll say yes I support letting the energy market work.  The whole ethanol subsidy thing has always bugged me.  It's another one of those things that has created an industry that's not viable at taxpayer expense that has unintended consequences (higher food prices).

JoshR - 2012-11-15 9:38 AM

 

The big problem with this is we are a small percentage of the reproductive capacity in the world.

rayd - 2012-11-15 7:01 AM

no doubt there is global warming, climate change, whatever you want to call it.  IMO, it is pretty arrogant to believe that humans are really going to change the earth as much as the alarmist say we will because of greenhouse gases.  The world climate has always fluctuated...I think mans impact has very little relevance.

With saying that, I do believe we have a responsibilty to take care of the planet, recycle, consumption, etc. However, I find a lot of hypocracy with the whole climate change thing...kind of like an old neighbor a few years ago trying to get me to watch an "Inconvenient Truth"  while he was driving a Hummer and his wife a Tahoe...and not recycling. 

 

tuwood - 2012-11-14 6:28 PM

I know we have a lot of people here who are firm believers in the global warming stuff so I'm curious what you guys think of the Presidents statements today. 

"What we do know is the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago. We do know that the Arctic ice cap is melting faster than was predicted even five years ago. We do know that there have been extraordinarily — there have been an extraordinarily large number of severe weather events here in North America, but also around the globe.”

http://www.examiner.com/article/president-obama-i-am-a-firm-believer-that-climate-change-is-real

I am an admitted skeptic of the catastrophic consequences and the level of influence man has on global warming but I find the Presidents statements to be a little propagandist in nature.  I know he's not going to cite a source in his responses, but were his statements even true?

On the heels of climategate and data showing a much slower rate of warming than expected I find it hard to believe everything is going "faster than predicted"

Now don't get me wrong,  people can study and believe in global warming all they want, but there's no doubt in my mind there's going to be a bunch of new regulations and spending by Obama to pay off his enviro buddies.  This is where I get ticked off.

drewb8 - 2012-11-15 3:29 PM Yes, what Obama said is true and is not an exaggeration.  If you'd like citations for the specific claims let me know.  I've found that most of the time when skepticism comes up it's almost always followed by an economic rationale for what, if anything should be done.  That's fine, that certainly something that's worth debating and there are lots of different views on it.  But as far as the actual science goes, it's pretty unequivicable that the planet is warming and that we're responsible for most of it.  There's a greater amount of uncertainty about what the effects of the warming will be but it is true that so far we've been seeing effects happen faster than was expected.

Birkierunner - 2012-11-16 10:36 AM

Drew, we went back and forth in the infamous Global Warming thread a while back and I don't want to enter into another one of those.  We won't convince each other.  But I am truly interested in any citations that "unequivicably" demonstrate that we are responsible for "most" of the global warming that has occurred.  In the Global Warming thread I posted a temp graph of the past 10,000 years (also contained in the link I posted above) which shows we have been warmer in the past before humans could possibly be implicated and cycles have always occurred and will continue to occur.  But to say that for this one particular warming cycle humans are almost solely responsible is just a little hard to buy. BTW, I am not one of those that say humans have zero impact.  I'm not interested in a citiation that merely demonstrates a correlation between CO2 and global temps unless that study also unequivicably shows what percent of that CO2 is anthropogenic.  Hopefully that study will also address the theory that CO2 levels are merely following global warming, not causing it (frankly, I don't remember where I read that).  I truly am just interested in reading what you have read.  Thanks.

powerman - 2012-11-16 1:43 PM

How much carbon we unlock is easily calculated. Natural CO2 production is easily observed. How much of that is absorbed is easily observed. How much it is increasing over natural and how much we are unlocking is not that difficult to grasp.

The science of green house gasses and atmospheric conditions is pretty cool... the politics of "Global Warming" is another discussion entirely. But to throw the baby out with the bath water is not the way to go. I personally do not have a hard time with anthropogenic CO2. What it's real impact is, what other things we do not understand about the carbon cycle, what else may be contributing to the "change", and more importantly, what can we do about it and how effective will those measures be... that is entirely up for debate.