... don't you ever wonder why you are repeating the same tired old Party-line ...
... sources that quite often fly in the face of common-sense AND all available scientific fact...
... What have you got to lose by admitting that Human industrial activity has aided the climate change we are currently experiencing...
... and that by approaching the problem with open, critical minds, and acting on as much clear and unbiased information as possible, we can maybe reverse or decrease the effect WE are having on the Planet in the near future ...
... One thing I have learnt from reading up on Global Warming is that 1) it is a real and serious issue that affects us all, and 2) that finding factual and clear information is hard, in between the waffle and bull from the "left" and the "right".
... don't you ever wonder why you are repeating the same tired old Party-line ...
Have you read any of your posts?
... sources that quite often fly in the face of common-sense AND all available scientific fact...
Common-sense? The temperature of Earth was higher 1000 years ago with no man-made CO2 than it is today. Do you even know the meaning of the phrase "common-sense"?
... What have you got to lose by admitting that Human industrial activity has aided the climate change we are currently experiencing...
I prefer to make decisions based on hard data. The phrase "Available scientific fact" is something you might want to think about just a bit more.
... and that by approaching the problem with open, critical minds, and acting on as much clear and unbiased information as possible...
An open mind and a critical mind are direct opposites. When it comes to global warming - if you accept the premise of "available scientific fact" then you've already made an error in judgment.
... we can maybe reverse or decrease the effect WE are having on the Planet in the near future ...
If you look at your statement you should see that the word "maybe" tells you something, as do the terms "near future". Do a little more homework.
... One thing I have learnt from reading up on Global Warming is that 1) it is a real and serious issue that affects us all, and 2) that finding factual and clear information is hard, in between the waffle and bull from the "left" and the "right"...
You haven't learnt a thing. You're a good example of someone who's defending the status quo - someone who jumped on the bus without doing his or her DD.
Climate scientists feeling the heat
As public debate deals in absolutes, some experts fear predictions 'have created a monster'
By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Scientists long have issued the warnings: The modern world's appetite for cars, air conditioning and cheap, fossil-fuel energy spews billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, unnaturally warming the world.
Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.
Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.
Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer's heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.
In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.
"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.
Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.
The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.
For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: "I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."
Vranes says, "When I hear things like that, I go crazy."
Climate scientists feeling the heat
As public debate deals in absolutes, some experts fear predictions 'have created a monster'
By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Scientists long have issued the warnings: The modern world's appetite for cars, air conditioning and cheap, fossil-fuel energy spews billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, unnaturally warming the world.
Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.
Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.
Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer's heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.
In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.
"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.
Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.
The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.
For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: "I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."
Vranes says, "When I hear things like that, I go crazy."
And then the article says; "Nearly all climate scientists believe the Earth is warming and that human activity, by increasing the level of Greenhouse gases such as CO2, has contributed significantly to the warming."
I have no problem with that at all. (or even your little attempt at selective spin ) What I want to see is action to diminish or at least quantify the problem. Imagine if some of that 2 trillion US dollars wasted on giving Democracy to Iraq (and taking the oil..thats called "Give and take" in neo-con-speak) had been earmarked for discovering EXACTLY what is going on with the planet, and either developing alternative strategies to wean ourselves off C02 producing sources, or building the dikes and barrages neccessary to protect lowlands, as well as investing in proper civil-security training of the public, creation of rapid reaction emergency forces to act swiftly in event of major flooding, fire, earthquake and other disasters, and ensuring that our planet will have a future for our children.
That only seems reasonable to me. Ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away is well and good, but the sheer scale of this problem means it is unlikely to go away.
Look for the water lapping at your doors in a couple of years time.
The main problem, as I see it, is that it won't be sudden cataclysm like "The Day After Tomorrow" and other ecodisaster films, but a steady and increasing derangement of global weather patterns, and especially sudden storms that blow up out of nowhere, or out of season, or sudden dry spells that take everyone by surprise, plus a general creep up of ocean levels. More investment in satellite technology and most importantly, human specialists on the ground, and a swing away from saber-rattling and a more proactive look at adapting to a climate which is going to become a far more important part of EVERYONES lives in the near future. (Lets nit-pick. Based on what I've read and seen, I say 10 years and we'll be seeing major changes on our maps. Be a good time now to invest in a map-making company ! )
Forewarned is forearmed.
The only disadvantage I see is that people will have to make the effort to educate themselves, to understand science and interactivity, and learn new skills, and to make the effort to get involved in the decisions that ultimately will effect them and their families. Ignorance will no longer be an option. (it was a fairly popular one, apparently....)
Dan, take a few minutes of your precious time to browse this.
I'll just mention the parts where they state that the Earth is the hottest it's been for the last 12,000 years, since the peak of the Holocene period. Or where they comment that if we gain 1 degree average extra, the Earth will be the hottest it's ever been for the last 1,35 million years. I'm sure you'll find these by yourself. The links are good too, at least in my idiot, unlearned opinion.
Last edited by Le Kiwi; 01-23-2007 at 12:43 PM.
Reason: Un truc !
"It looks like the Soviet approach to science is taking over the US now. Climate scientists are going to have to choose sides in scientific debates based not on empirical evidence subjected to the scientific method, but on whether they want to succeed in their careers.
Want a life? Say global warming is real. Want to end up working as a substitute science teacher? Say what you really think."
I don't believe that would be so bad if it means that life will continue on this planet for a while longer, at least until the Sun goes Supernova...by that time hopefully we'll have managed to figure out how to get out of harms way, and all the Global-warming deniers will have been Raptured up...
le kiwi,
quoting that rag "the guardian" quoting the IPCC demonstrates how truly screwed up your thinking process is. UN uber alles ? France is messin' up your mind, dude.
Sorry, Nero, I don't see the problem with "The Guardian" ? It IS a left wing leaning paper, or leaning towards Humanism, integrity, and a better future for all the people on the Planet if you want to be REALLY picky, but I also use rightwing sources too. The problem I have with a lot of the right-wing biased sources tends to be their corporate ownership pushing sometimes discrete, sometimes not, corporate messages. Thats normal, they wouldn't spend billions on these papers to NOT spin the "Truth" in their favour, now would they ?
The IPCC is what seems to me to be one of the more serious and better informed sources to understand what is really going on, unless you believe in conspiracy theories about the UN being intent on creating a World Government, and turning America back over to the Indians and sending all the White or non-Muslim Americans (who haven't been Raptured up.. ) to Iran as Harem slaves and giving all their possessions to the poor and to the Cuban's ? (I believe this is the AEI, GOP, Harper and FDD line and spin on Global Warming, no ?)
Sorry, Nero, I don't see the problem with "The Guardian" ? It IS a left wing leaning paper, or leaning towards Humanism, integrity, and a better future for all the people on the Planet if you want to be REALLY picky, but I also use rightwing sources too. The problem I have with a lot of the right-wing biased sources tends to be their corporate ownership pushing sometimes discrete, sometimes not, corporate messages. Thats normal, they wouldn't spend billions on these papers to NOT spin the "Truth" in their favour, now would they ?
So let me get this straight. Right wing positions are pushed by corporate greed, while leftist positions are out of the goodness of mankind? Is that an accurate summation in 20 words or less?
... a left wing leaning paper, or leaning towards Humanism, integrity, and a better future for all the people on the Planet if you want to be REALLY picky
So let me get this straight. Right wing positions are pushed by corporate greed, while leftist positions are out of the goodness of mankind? Is that an accurate summation in 20 words or less?
Up is down, black is white for you my friend.
Nope. But that tends to be the way I see things presented here and elsewhere. If you want, post some sources from the "traditional" right-wing which are agreeing that Global Warming is a serious issue, is most likely enhanced dramatically by the effects Humans have made on the ecosystem, and that we should all work together rapidly to find a solution.
Which "left-wing" positions (mass-media groups ) are part of huge corporate empires, for a start ? (and yes, there are some.)
I piss you guys off, I'm sure, because for me the World is NOT absolutes, it's NOT "Black and White", it's a vast array of ever-changing colors (because I don't like seeing it in shades of grey...) and I spout some "newspeak bombastic jargon" sometimes, because it's often the only way to provoke reaction in people, either to polarise them, or to make them hunt for sources and information to discredit my "pompous" approach, which sometimes causes them to find truths that were hidden behind their own dogma-wall. (That's like a Fire-wall, only thicker...)
"Corporate greed" is a bit harsh, economic interests is possibly closer to the truth. From my observations, the "left" lean towards Humanism and the "right" towards egoism and self, and that's such a sweeping generalisation that it annoys me to use it. Sorry, but it's the impression I get.
Two New Books Confirm Global Warming is Natural, Moderate
Tuesday January 30, 2007
Two powerful new books say today’s global warming is due not to human activity but primarily to a long, moderate solar-linked cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas. The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change, by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March.
Singer and Avery note that most of the earth’s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth’s last million years. The evidence ranges from ancient Nile flood records, Chinese court documents and Roman wine grapes to modern spectral analysis of polar ice cores, deep seabed sediments, and layered cave stalagmites.
Unstoppable Global Warming shows the earth’s temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings. The book cites the work of Svensmark, who says cosmic rays vary the earth’s temperatures by creating more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that cool the earth. It notes that global climate models can’t accurately register cloud effects.
The Chilling Stars relates how Svensmark’s team mimicked the chemistry of earth’s atmosphere, by putting realistic mixtures of atmospheric gases into a large reaction chamber, with ultraviolet light as a stand-in for the sun. When they turned on the UV, microscopic droplets—cloud seeds—started floating through the chamber.
“We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons [generated by cosmic rays] do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei,” says Svensmark.
The Chilling Stars documentshow cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun’s irradiance fourfold, creating 1-2 degree C cycles in earth’s temperatures: Cosmic rays continually slam into the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, creating ion clusters that become seeds for small droplets of water and sulfuric acid. The droplets then form the low, wet clouds that reflect solar energy back into space. When the sun is more active, it shields the earth from some of the rays, clouds wane, and the planet warms.
Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.
Haven't we covered the Hudson Foundation and it's biases and obvious corporate "Carry on polluting, its only natural" spin previously in this topic ?
Disinformation or spin doesn't become more believable or palatable by repeating it ad hoc.
Every and Singer have already been clearly identified and placed in their little box, on the Greenland ice. If they are right, they'll freeze to death, if they are wrong, we'll see them bobbing into the San Francisco harbour feeling like clowns. But it's nice to be able to have different opinions, even "junk-science" ones, eh guys ?
I am thinking about writing a few books that will appeal to a certain percentage of the population. Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the NYT will write reviews praising the objective presentation of the evidence. The theories proposed will be expanded in BBC and French television documentaries. Hippie groupies will chase after me, unshaven pits & legs and all.
A trilogy of books if you will, weighty tomes that will both and inspire and intrigue. Here are the working titles:
Someday You Will Die & It's George Bush's Fault
.
.
Terrorist Good/Bush Bad .
.
The Big Book of Kate Beckinsale Nudes & George Bush is the Devil.
In the two years since the publication of State of Fear, it has received little public notice and the drumbeat of propaganda about global warming has continuned. Al Gore turned his PowerPoint presentation on the issue into a movie, An Inconvenient Truth [2006], which did reasonably well at the box office. U.S. Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe have written an open letter to Exxon-Mobil threatening some kind of action because the oil company has been funding some anti-warming research at a think tank. They apparently think that free speech has now been suspended and that denying global warming should have the same legal prohibiton as Holocaust denial in France. They also seem to think that the source of research funding always determines the results that are to be expected -- a principle that also discredits, of course, research funded by the federal government, which uniformly serves the interests of the federal government in implying that it, including Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe, should have more power. Unfortunately for Al Gore, the convenient nature of his truth, which is for unlimited government and command economics, meaning money and power for him and his friends, emerged in the 2006 campaign for Proposition 87 in California. This was to tax oil companies to fund research into "alternative energy." Gore was to endure two levels of humiliation in the campaign: (1) that his own campaign ad for the proposition was pulled to run a series of ads featuring only Bill Clinton; and (2) that the proposition went down to decisive defeat. As it happened, a week after the election The Economist mentioned that about 10% of venture capital is already going into research on alternative fuels and energy. However, since there has been steady research in such things since the 70's, with limited results, how much more is to be expected any time soon is a good question.
With very little in the way of skeptical comment from the media bandwagon for Gore, et al., Unstoppable Global Warming, Every 1,500 Years, by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery finally is a bit of fresh air. They are not as skeptical as Crichton about warming as such, but they go after the thesis that it has anything to do with human activities and is something that we should, or can, do something about. One aspect of their approach involves the natural rhythms of warming and cooling in Earth's history. Another is the role of carbon dioxide in relation to a greenhouse effect of warming. With both, some eye opening information comes from an article published by the Geological Society of America in the GSA Today of July 2003 [Vol.13, No.7], "Celestial Driver of Phanerozoic Climate?" by Nir J. Shaviv, of Hebrew University, and Ján Veizer of the University of Ottawa and the Ruhr Universität. The whole article is available in text or pdf format on line.
A key bit of data from Veizer and Shaviv's article I have added to the following chart, whose original form, showing the transgressions and regressions of the oceans, can be examined at "The Pulse of the Earth" webpage. The full chart in "Celestial Driver of Phanerozoic Climate?" can be seen in a popup -- the legend is in another popup. Here we can see North America, in brown and orange, standing dry during the regressions, and the ocean, in blue, lapping over the Transcontinental Arch during the transgressions. What I have added, also in blue, is an indication of when the earth has has polar caps. This is shown when blue bars extend at each end of the chart -- the "Icehouse" conditions for the Earth. In Phanerozoic time, i.e. geological history since the beginning of the Cambrian, something under the last 600 millions years, there have been four "Icehouses." In the Paleozoic Era, from the Cambrian to the Permian, this involved glaciation. Veizer and Shaviv note the presence of "ice rafted debris" and "glacial deposits" in the icehouse periods. During the Mesozoic, the time of the dinosaurs, from the Triassic to the Cretaceous, the icehouse is indicated with a different tint of blue because, as Veizer and Shaviv say, "true polar ice caps have not been documented for this time interval." There is some "ice rafted debris" but no evidence of glaciation. Finally, we are in an icehouse ourselves, which has peristed most of the Cenozoic Era, with glaciation since the Pleistocene and icecaps and many glaciers persisting. I have added a fifth icehouse before the Cambrian because this is now a popular theory about why life only became abundant and varied in the "Cambrian Revolution" -- before then we had a "snowball Earth," with all the oceans frozen and life limited by the darkess of unfrozen, subsurface water. Given the rhythm of the icehouses, it is reasonable that there should be a Precambrian episode anyway.
The temperature of the Earth over geological time follows the succession of icehouse and "greenhouses," i.e. the warmer intermediate periods. The highest temperatures of all were after the end of the Permian icehouse. This produces a cycle of about 135 million years. Veizer, a geologist, did not know what periodic event, if any, could account for this cycle. There have been four icehouses in Phanerozoic time and, for instance, six transgressions. The Tippecanoe and Absaroka transgressions center nicely in icehouses, but we do not otherwise get a match. The Zuñi transgression neatly straddles the Jurassic-Cretaceous icehouse and the following greenhouse. Then Veizer discovered that Shaviv, an astrophysicist, did know what could match the cycles. That was when the earth, in its orbit around the Milky Way Galaxy, passes through spiral arms of the galaxy -- right now we are in the Orion Arm of the Galaxy (home of M42, the Great Orion Nebula). Their article is mainly about the effect this could have on weather. It turns out that while in a spiral arm, the Earth receives more in the way of radiation form cosmic rays. This ionizes atoms in the air, which provide better nuclei for cloud formation. The icehouses are thus characterized by greater cloud cover, which increases the Earth's albedo and reflects more sunlight back into space. The Earth cools. A purely geophysical process would seem to be responsible for the transgressions, and the warming effect we might expect from water covering the continents is apparently offset by the cooling effect. The Jurassic-Cretaceous icehouse appears to be the exception, where the arrangment of the contingents, with open ocean at the poles, prevented glaciation and the formation, as Veizer and Shaviv say, of "true polar ice caps."
What the record of temperature, icehouses, and transgressions really doesn't match up with is the history of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Veizer and Shaviv cite three different studies on CO2 levels. The studies do not agree very well, but they do agree on two things: (1) the rise and fall of CO2 is unrelated to the rise and fall of temperature, and (2) the concentration of CO2 right now is at a historic low. I had seen this mentioned a year or so ago on just one television documentary, on something like the Science Channel, but they had not given a reference and nothing else I have seen has mentioned anything of the sort. One study (the GEOCARB III, by Berner and Kothavala, 2001) actually shows very high CO2 levels in a couple of the coldest periods, during the Ordovician and near the Jurassic Cretaceous boundary. The effect of this, of course, is to show that CO2 levels don't have very much to do with the temperature of the Earth. This is bad news for global warming enthusiasts, who want a direct link between warming and the evils of automobiles, oil companies, and American consumerism.
Singer and Avery, of course, have a great deal more in their book than an examination of Veizer and Shaviv's information. I lead with the latter because it is so devastating, and because public discussions of global warming still usually fail to note that the Earth has been much warmer in the past than now, and that for much of Phanerozoic time the Earth had no glaciers or polar caps. The impression the public would get is that any warming will kill coral reefs and then the whole planet, so we better give up modern energy production right away. The title of Unstoppable Global Warming, Every 1,500 Years refers to cycles of warming and cooling on a much smaller scale than Phanerozoic time, indeed, just since the end of the last Glacial, about 10,000 years ago. For several thousand years after that, the Earth was relatively much warmer than it is now -- the Climatic Optimum, which Singer and Avery, unlike Al Gore, have no reason not to mention. Since then, the cycles of climate change are reasonably evident for about the last 2000 years. Thus, we go from the Roman Warming of the early years AD, to the Dark Ages Cooling, to the Mediaeval Warming -- the Little Climatic Optimum -- to the Little Ice Age, and finally to the warming trend that has continued since around 1850. Recent periods of cooling seem to involve droughts in key places, and the overall cooling since the Climatic Optimum has meant gradual desiccation, for instance, of the Sahara. The Dark Ages Cooling can have added to the problems of the Roman Empire and may even have knocked out Mayan Civilization, which was entirely dependant on rainfall for water. Similarly, the theory is that an earlier cooling led to a drought in Egypt, so that the evils of the First Intermediate Period are linked to climate -- the great Faiyum lake, later beloved of XII Dynasty Kings, appears to have dried up during this period.
Things like the Climatic Optimum and the Little Ice Age used to be non-controversial, but since they are not helpful for global warming scare-mongering, there are cases examined by Singer and Avery where attempts have been made to explain them away or manipulate the data. The most infamous of these may have been the "Hockey Stick" graph of Michael Mann, which eliminated most of the variations in temperature for the last 1000 years and posited a steep and unprecedented rise (the hockey stick blade) in temperatures in the 20th century [pp.68-69]. Other attempts to explain away historic variations involve claiming that the Mediaeval Warming or the Little Ice Age only occurred in Europe or nearby and were not global phenomena. Singer and Avery go over all the evidence, from all over the world, against these revisionist efforts.
Singer and Avery nicely sum up the "strongest allies" of the theory of human-caused (anthropogenic) global warming:
"Computer models that cannot explain past temperature, let alone accurately forecast future ones, and whose funding depends on the public's fear of radical warming.
"Activists who oppose modern technology, abhor expanding human populations, and especially hate the low-cost energy that allieviates human poverty and misery. They say we must...renounce attractive lifestyles, give up high-yield farming, shorten millions of lives, and put more pressure on Third World forests for fuelwood.
"European politicians.
"Journalists looking for scary headlines.
"Various national and international bureaucracies and UN-appointed members and staff of the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change." [p.198]
This list, of course, is short on science and evidence and long on politics, both that of activists with a moral axe to grind and that of politicians and bureaucrats whose rent-seeking interest is in their own power. Since the scare-mongering enthusiasts like to blame evils on the oil companies or the American consumer, targets they already seemed to dislike anyway, as part of the general agenda and ideology of the Left, they deserve at least as much in terms of ad hominem attacks as they dish out. But this is not a minor point. The public is constantly told that skepticism or counter-evidence against anthropogenic global-warming is simply part of disinformation from self-interested oil companies or related corporations, who are preventing us from using or developing the alternative energy sources that would Save the Earth and lead to "sustainable" growth. There are many who may sincerely believe this scenario, but with far too many activists it is a smoke-screen for an "agenda" (as they like to say) for something very different: for a virtuous eco-poverty (as in Cuba) and a government that will make the "hard choices" of forcing people into that povery (as in Cuba). They may know that "alterative energy" is not available (or is nuclear, which is also objectionable) and that the oil companies are simply truthfully doing their job. It is the job, cheap energy, that they don't like. Capitalism, freedom, prosperity, and America are the enemy, as they have been for many years. While press has done its best to ignore Michael Crichton on this, and will certainly ignore Singer and Avery (and Veizer and Shaviv), we also see that when the public realizes what the real agenda and consequences of the business are, as with Proposition 87, the likes of Al Gore come out on the short end. Even better, the developing world, including India and China, have little patience for wealthy westerners (which is what the ecological activists generally are) telling them they should remain in poverty. China will probably have the largest economy in the world by 2020; and even without democracy, the Chinese government is looking forward to the power that this will give their country. If the United States should hobble its own economy with energy restrictions, so much the better.
What the record of temperature, icehouses, and transgressions really doesn't match up with is the history of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Veizer and Shaviv cite three different studies on CO2 levels. The studies do not agree very well, but they do agree on two things: (1) the rise and fall of CO2 is unrelated to the rise and fall of temperature, and (2) the concentration of CO2 right now is at a historic low.
I had seen this mentioned a year or so ago on just one television documentary, on something like the Science Channel, but they had not given a reference and nothing else I have seen has mentioned anything of the sort.
One study (the GEOCARB III, by Berner and Kothavala, 2001) actually shows very high CO2 levels in a couple of the coldest periods, during the Ordovician and near the Jurassic Cretaceous boundary. The effect of this, of course, is to show that CO2 levels don't have very much to do with the temperature of the Earth. This is bad news for global warming enthusiasts, who want a direct link between warming and the evils of automobiles, oil companies, and American consumerism.
And there you have it folks, the sky may NOT be falling the way all the tree huggers (who havent made any changes in their own lives) would have you think.
I think Im gonna go outside and fart without any fear of repercussions now.
There is an interesting study out about the general ignorance of the American people about Global Climate Change you may want to google it up, XFBO.
13% of Americans have no idea what it is, and a higher percentage than any other nation on the planet did not clearly understand the basic facts. Why wasn't I surprised when I read that ?
Dan, you must live on another planet than this one, because I can't find ANYTHING to back up decreasing CO2 levels. All sources I use or have checked out are pretty convincing in that the CO2 levels in the Earths atmosphere are at the highest they have ever been for between 1,000,000 to 30,000,000 years.
All sources tend to agree that when CO2 levels are low, the temperature is low, and that when CO2 levels are high, er, the temperature is high.
Here, don't take my word for it, read it yourself. Then go and read some peer-reviews of Viezer and Shaviv, and also Singer and Avery. See how respected they are in the scientific community. Nice graphs, though. http://news.bbc.co.uk
) What I want to see is action to diminish or at least quantify the problem. Imagine if some of that 2 trillion US dollars wasted on giving Democracy to Iraq (and taking the oil..thats called "Give and take" in neo-con-speak) had been earmarked for discovering EXACTLY what is going on with the planet, and either developing alternative strategies to wean ourselves off C02 producing sources, or building the dikes and barrages neccessary to protect lowlands, as well as investing in proper civil-security training of the public, creation of rapid reaction emergency forces to act swiftly in event of major flooding, fire, earthquake and other disasters, and ensuring that our planet will have a future for our children.
)
Here we can see North America, in brown and orange, standing dry during the regressions, and the ocean, in blue, lapping over the Transcontinental Arch during the transgressions. What I have added, also in blue, is an indication of when the earth has has polar caps. This is shown when blue bars extend at each end of the chart -- the "Icehouse" conditions for the Earth. In Phanerozoic time, i.e. geological history since the beginning of the Cambrian, something under the last 600 millions years, there have been four "Icehouses." In the Paleozoic Era, from the Cambrian to the Permian, this involved glaciation. Veizer and Shaviv note the presence of "ice rafted debris" and "glacial deposits" in the icehouse periods. During the Mesozoic, the time of the dinosaurs, from the Triassic to the Cretaceous, the icehouse is indicated with a different tint of blue because, as Veizer and Shaviv say, "true polar ice caps have not been documented for this time interval." There is some "ice rafted debris" but no evidence of glaciation. Finally, we are in an icehouse ourselves, which has peristed most of the Cenozoic Era, with glaciation since the Pleistocene and icecaps and many glaciers persisting. I have added a fifth icehouse before the Cambrian because this is now a popular theory about why life only became abundant and varied in the "Cambrian Revolution" -- before then we had a "snowball Earth," with all the oceans frozen and life limited by the darkess of unfrozen, subsurface water. Given the rhythm of the icehouses, it is reasonable that there should be a Precambrian episode anyway.
Linear Mode
