Global warming
(Figure 1: Fluctuations in temperature (blue) and in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (red) over the past 400,000 years as inferred from Antarctic ice-core records. The vertical red bar is the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past two centuries and before 2006.)
With all the pundits on both side throwing around numbers and claims (unsubstatiated), I prefer to look at the raw data. They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
Keep burying your head in the sand doubters.
posted by Praguetwin at
4:07 PM
12 Comments:
I'd like to know how the temperature data for the entire Earth was collected for the 399,950 years prior to the point in the 20th century when we gained the ability to measure it at all times over the entire planet.
In addition, the planet passed through ice ages and jungle ages before man appeared. What makes an increase in CO2 so scary now?
If burning oil has everyone worried, the best strategy is to remove all restrictions on oil and burn it till it's gone. Then we'll have no choice except switching to nuclear.
By
no_slappz, at 1:33 AM
Essentially the same graphs presented in An Inconvenient Truth. Dare I say it...a chilling set of stats.
By
Anonymous, at 3:11 AM
You should have read your own post of Monday May 8 2006 wherein you write:
Terror
1.Intense, overpowering fear.
2.One that instills intense fear: a rabid dog that became the terror of the neighborhood.
3.The ability to instill intense fear: the terror of jackboots pounding down the street.
4.Violence committed or threatened by a group to intimidate or coerce a population, as for military or political purposes.
So to defeat terror (and the president does say that we are in a "War on Terror"), we must first and foremost defeat that intense and overpowering fear within ourselves.
Such Fantastic caprice… You suggest that we should not fear terrorism, but then expect us to “panic” at the death of bees. You fear monger us with the threat of global warming with loose statistical evidence, and then suggest that people who are optimistic about the economy have “illogical exuberance”
It might have done you well to actually have watched the documentary that I sent you wherein it is explained that the heat you reference actually predates the C02 and not the other way around.
I suggest that in the spirit of “not being afraid” you should link to said documentary and allow your readers the opportunity to see the other side of the argument.
I would also do you well to read this.
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20070514&s=cockburn
By
Lysander Cadwalader, at 4:37 AM
Too bad a close examination of the graph shows the increased temperatures preceed the rise in CO2 by an average of 900 years, so that instead of proof for your current chicken little predictions, the graph is proof of the wrongness of your view on global warming. The increase in temperature caused by the sun, and well known perterbations in orbit and axis tilt, in turn causes the sea to give off more of the CO2 it contains. But of course your graph is beyond dispute.
By
Roger Fraley, at 5:26 AM
N_S,
1. Ice cores
2. The extremely sharp, unprecedented nature of it.
3. Maybe your right.
Kvatch,
LOL. Chilling. That is a good one.
By
Praguetwin, at 11:06 AM
Lysander,
Welcome.
I am not contesting that we should panic. I am suggesting that we take sound, logical steps to reverse the CO2 output that is unprecedented in history.
It is worth a trillion dollars to "liberate" Iraq, but not to save the planet. Is that what you would say?
I'll admit, I'm actually a little frightened about the bee thing. Maybe I'm wrong, but honestly, that does scare me.
Here is an excercise: lets see what does more damage over the next 50 years. Bees, Global Warming, or Islamists.
By
Praguetwin, at 11:10 AM
Roger,
You must be looking at another chart. Click on the chart to make it bigger. Get a piece of paper, use a corner of it to make a 90 degree angle. Slide it along the bottom and notice what starts to go up first. Remember, red it CO2.
Quite simply, if you are talking about this chart, you are wrong.
By
Praguetwin, at 11:15 AM
praguetwin,
Some simple forces and trends are at work in the world. First, the population is growing. In 1950 the population of the planet was 2.5 billion. Today it is 6.5 billion. Soon 9 billion of us will wander the globe.
Every human represents increasing energy use. But only a small number live in nations where it is possible to restrict certain behaviors. Meanwhile, prosperity is spreading, and we are doing our best to bring prosperity to everyone on Earth. The muslims, however, oppose our goal.
Prosperity is manifested through the increasing presence of energy-consuming devices: cars, planes, trains, boats, climate-controlled homes and offices, etc.
In other words, more people equals more prosperity and more prosperity equals more energy use. Thus, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere will increase along with the population.
Furthermore, even if engineers reduce emissions from internal-combustion engines by 50%, it won't take long before the number of cars and drivers in the world doubles, then doubles again. China and India will see huge increases in drivers and vehicles in the coming decades. Those countries will not sacrifice the spread of prosperity for the dubious goal of "saving the planet."
However, cars built in China and India will go far on a gallon of gas. Not to save the planet, but simply because that's what it will take to motorize the population. India recently announced plans to build a car that would sell for $2,500. You can be sure that car would not pass US Department of Transportation safety regulations. But India isn't sticky on that subject. At least a hundred people a week are killed riding on the outsides of trains. Nobody seems to care. Highway deaths will provoke a yawn as well.
On the other hand, China took the one step that has the power to reduce harmful emissions. It limited the growth of the population.
Only by limiting the number of people on Earth is it possible to limit emissions. As long as the world's population is increasing, aggregate energy consumption will rise.
The "average fleet mileage" doesn't matter if the size of the world's fleet of motor vehicles continues to increase as rapidly as it is.
If we are unable to limit our numbers, we must choose one of the other alternatives. Either become Luddites, Amish or embrace fundamentalist islam. That will do it. Any takers?
By
no_slappz, at 6:42 PM
"sound and logical" steps can only be taken when there is empirical evidence of man created global warming. Without said empirical evidence any action taken is nothing more than the panic you warn us against in your other writings.
By
Lysander Cadwalader, at 11:33 PM
Lysander,
But in Iraq, even though there was no empirical evidence that an invasion would lead to a more stable Middle East, a trillion dollars was invested.
Is that not panic?
By
Praguetwin, at 8:37 AM
So in light of your desire to act on something yet to be proved, I must believe that you accept the run up to war in Iraq as a reasonable safeguard to future international tranquility.
By
Lysander Cadwalader, at 3:26 PM
praguetwin, you wrote:
"But in Iraq, even though there was no empirical evidence that an invasion would lead to a more stable Middle East, a trillion dollars was invested."
Are you suggesting that battling Germany and Japan in WWII was driven by empirical evidence that war in Europe was guaranteed to send the world's leading nations down the right road?
You wondered:
"Is that not panic?"
No. It's not. It's confronting a self-declared threat with force.
It was about 25 years ago that population was identified as the chief threat to the future of humanity.
Paul Erlichman wrote a book titled "The Population Bomb." I suppose it was a Malthusian rant about the inability of Earth to support the soon-to-be-born hordes. Of course today the population of Earth has surpassed the number Erlichman claimed was unsustainable.
Around the same time agonies about "nuclear winter" arose. And Global Cooling.
Anxiety over each hysteria was multiplied when experts and pundits calmly described the problem backed by graphs and calculations and mountains of scientific research.
The only word to describe these catastrophes was: INEVITABLE.
By
no_slappz, at 5:03 PM
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