This is a truly urgent issue for us all, so I'm going to take a moment to respond, Hoopington.
I'll add my voice to those who understand that climate change is happening and is a result of human activity. Below is the substantive part of a post I made on another forum. Apologies for not rewriting it from the ground up, but I'm pressed for time just now.
For me and a lot of folks I know, the science is long settled on both issues -- that climate change is happening at an ever-increasing pace, and that it is human engineered. It seems to me that dealing with the realities of this, meaning how it will impact us with respect to survival, food production issues and the like, is one of the most important things for serious discussion in any forum. Weather, at least the majority of the time, needs to cooperate to grow food. The seas must be alive and rich with a host of essential plankton-type species for there to be terrestrial life.
I am always open to reviewing additional factual information that adds knowledge to my conclusions, but so often, it's just people saying how they feel. Means nothing.
Here is some of the factual information I've found extremely persuasive:
1. It’s a myth and a meme that there is serious debate among scientists that climate change is human-caused. In fact, 96-98% of scientists completely agree on this matter. So why are we paying any attention to the 2-4% who disagree?
2. Carbon molecules in the atmosphere can be “fingerprinted.” One out of four is directly related to human activity. These do not count the ones that are released in a natural way because of human activity.
3. 20% of all carbon emissions come from deforestation. Deforestation accounts for as much carbon in the atmosphere as has been released from all vehicle emissions in the whole world for as long as there have been vehicles. Isn’t that a staggering statistic?
4. According to conservative estimates, at the current rate of warming, Fargo, North Dakota will be the new Phoenix, Arizona by the turn of the century. So what will Phoenix, Arizona be like by then?
5. Ocean acidification is happening at such an alarming rate due to its absorption of carbon that current trajectories indicate all plankton will be unable to survive past 2048. Since 80% of the oxygen on our planet is produced by plankton, it’s not too hard to do the rest of the math. We have already begun to see significant effects of ocean acidification on the food chain. This is accelerating due to feedback loops created by our having approached the oceans’ capacity to absorb any more carbon. Whatever can no longer be absorbed by the oceans will go straight into the atmosphere -- accelerating global warming even further.
6. In the overall trend tracked for the past 30 years, 40% of sea ice in the Arctic has disappeared, replaced by “dark” ocean spots and lakes in glaciers. These absorb more warmth than the bright Arctic ice cap. Again, in just the past 30 years, these dark places have caused more global warming than all of the carbon dioxide emissions of every vehicle on the planet. Warming has increased because of melt. “Dark” ocean spots and lakes cause even more warming, which leads to more lakes, which leads to more warming. This is especially disturbing because in projections made about the rate of warming decades ago with regard to this very phenomenon – which projections we have exceeded in virtually every instance – these dangerous feedback loops were not taken into account. In other words, it’s happening a lot faster than we thought it would.
7. The ice in Greenland is melting at a pace five times faster than it was just 20 years ago. Five times.
8. Methane release both from the Arctic Siberian Ice Shelf as well as from fracking. A recent study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences based on an analysis of a number of hydraulic fracturing sites in southwestern Pennsylvania has found that methane was being released into the atmosphere at 100 to 1,000 times the rate that the Environmental Protection Agency estimated.
Further, giant fountains/torches/plumes of methane entering the atmosphere up to 1 km across have been seen and extensively studied on the East Siberian Shelf. This methane eruption data is so consistent and aerially extensive that when combined with methane gas warming potentials, Permian extinction event temperatures and methane lifetime data, it paints a frightening picture of the beginning of the now uncontrollable global warming induced destabilization of the subsea Arctic methane hydrates on the shelf and slope which started in late 2010. This process of methane release will accelerate exponentially, release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere and could likely lead to the demise of all life on earth before the middle of this century.
Methane's lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide (CO2), but CH4 is more efficient at trapping radiation than CO2. Pound for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 on climate change is over 20 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period.
All of the above... it sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, doesn't it? But the facts are there, they are real and are easily verified for any who care to look, which I encourage all to do -- and they are scary. You can call me alarmist, or you can do the work yourself and find that the facts are as stated.
Please do not tell me about how the weather is at your place and how it "proves" global warming isn't happening. What you're using as examples is weather forecasting, which by comparison is highly specific and detailed, and believe it or not has nothing to do with global warming forecasting. Climate model predictions are sum averages that are global and are nothing more than trends on a planetary scale. It does not predict what the temperature will be in Portland, OR in 20 years on such and such day, but what will happen as a whole to sum averages. Those folks have been pretty accurate historically. What's worse, though, is that the ongoing studies with the Siberian ice melt, the methane hydrates and other reinforcing feedbacks, they as of yet have not factored any of these feedback loops into their modeling because of the ongoing research. Until now, they couldn't factor in the unintended consequences because we didn't know what they were. But now we do, and none of it bodes well.
Similarly, I'd really prefer to not hear about the predictable and tedious "natural cycles" argument, and here is why: Every single natural cycle for which we can account -- Earth's orbit around the Sun, solar activity, volcanic activity -- that in the past has sent us into an extinction level event (ELE) indicates we should be in a cooling period, not a warming one. I often hear people say how 40 years ago, scientists were predicting we were heading into an ice age, so how can they be right about global warming? According to all the natural cycle data, we should be heading into an ice age. But we're not. And the reason is because of human-caused fossil fuel emissions. Not only have we thrown enough carbon/methane into the atmosphere to stop an ice age, we've thrown enough up there to reverse one.
The science on all this is not really that hard. We know that if so many parts per million of CO2 and/or CH4 enter the atmosphere, we will see X amount of corresponding increase in global temperature. CO2 increases or decreases and global temperatures track together almost in lockstep as far back as we care to measure. So these are easy extrapolations to make based on the measurable amounts of CO2/CH4 in our atmosphere today. Scientists have long said we are in a serious danger zone to exceed 380 ppm of CO2. In April, we now measure 402 ppm -- the highest amount in more than 800,000 years, the highest ever in human history.
Accepting what is true is the first step to making any change.
FWIW.
I'll add my voice to those who understand that climate change is happening and is a result of human activity. Below is the substantive part of a post I made on another forum. Apologies for not rewriting it from the ground up, but I'm pressed for time just now.
For me and a lot of folks I know, the science is long settled on both issues -- that climate change is happening at an ever-increasing pace, and that it is human engineered. It seems to me that dealing with the realities of this, meaning how it will impact us with respect to survival, food production issues and the like, is one of the most important things for serious discussion in any forum. Weather, at least the majority of the time, needs to cooperate to grow food. The seas must be alive and rich with a host of essential plankton-type species for there to be terrestrial life.
I am always open to reviewing additional factual information that adds knowledge to my conclusions, but so often, it's just people saying how they feel. Means nothing.
Here is some of the factual information I've found extremely persuasive:
1. It’s a myth and a meme that there is serious debate among scientists that climate change is human-caused. In fact, 96-98% of scientists completely agree on this matter. So why are we paying any attention to the 2-4% who disagree?
2. Carbon molecules in the atmosphere can be “fingerprinted.” One out of four is directly related to human activity. These do not count the ones that are released in a natural way because of human activity.
3. 20% of all carbon emissions come from deforestation. Deforestation accounts for as much carbon in the atmosphere as has been released from all vehicle emissions in the whole world for as long as there have been vehicles. Isn’t that a staggering statistic?
4. According to conservative estimates, at the current rate of warming, Fargo, North Dakota will be the new Phoenix, Arizona by the turn of the century. So what will Phoenix, Arizona be like by then?
5. Ocean acidification is happening at such an alarming rate due to its absorption of carbon that current trajectories indicate all plankton will be unable to survive past 2048. Since 80% of the oxygen on our planet is produced by plankton, it’s not too hard to do the rest of the math. We have already begun to see significant effects of ocean acidification on the food chain. This is accelerating due to feedback loops created by our having approached the oceans’ capacity to absorb any more carbon. Whatever can no longer be absorbed by the oceans will go straight into the atmosphere -- accelerating global warming even further.
6. In the overall trend tracked for the past 30 years, 40% of sea ice in the Arctic has disappeared, replaced by “dark” ocean spots and lakes in glaciers. These absorb more warmth than the bright Arctic ice cap. Again, in just the past 30 years, these dark places have caused more global warming than all of the carbon dioxide emissions of every vehicle on the planet. Warming has increased because of melt. “Dark” ocean spots and lakes cause even more warming, which leads to more lakes, which leads to more warming. This is especially disturbing because in projections made about the rate of warming decades ago with regard to this very phenomenon – which projections we have exceeded in virtually every instance – these dangerous feedback loops were not taken into account. In other words, it’s happening a lot faster than we thought it would.
7. The ice in Greenland is melting at a pace five times faster than it was just 20 years ago. Five times.
8. Methane release both from the Arctic Siberian Ice Shelf as well as from fracking. A recent study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences based on an analysis of a number of hydraulic fracturing sites in southwestern Pennsylvania has found that methane was being released into the atmosphere at 100 to 1,000 times the rate that the Environmental Protection Agency estimated.
Further, giant fountains/torches/plumes of methane entering the atmosphere up to 1 km across have been seen and extensively studied on the East Siberian Shelf. This methane eruption data is so consistent and aerially extensive that when combined with methane gas warming potentials, Permian extinction event temperatures and methane lifetime data, it paints a frightening picture of the beginning of the now uncontrollable global warming induced destabilization of the subsea Arctic methane hydrates on the shelf and slope which started in late 2010. This process of methane release will accelerate exponentially, release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere and could likely lead to the demise of all life on earth before the middle of this century.
Methane's lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide (CO2), but CH4 is more efficient at trapping radiation than CO2. Pound for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 on climate change is over 20 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period.
All of the above... it sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, doesn't it? But the facts are there, they are real and are easily verified for any who care to look, which I encourage all to do -- and they are scary. You can call me alarmist, or you can do the work yourself and find that the facts are as stated.
Please do not tell me about how the weather is at your place and how it "proves" global warming isn't happening. What you're using as examples is weather forecasting, which by comparison is highly specific and detailed, and believe it or not has nothing to do with global warming forecasting. Climate model predictions are sum averages that are global and are nothing more than trends on a planetary scale. It does not predict what the temperature will be in Portland, OR in 20 years on such and such day, but what will happen as a whole to sum averages. Those folks have been pretty accurate historically. What's worse, though, is that the ongoing studies with the Siberian ice melt, the methane hydrates and other reinforcing feedbacks, they as of yet have not factored any of these feedback loops into their modeling because of the ongoing research. Until now, they couldn't factor in the unintended consequences because we didn't know what they were. But now we do, and none of it bodes well.
Similarly, I'd really prefer to not hear about the predictable and tedious "natural cycles" argument, and here is why: Every single natural cycle for which we can account -- Earth's orbit around the Sun, solar activity, volcanic activity -- that in the past has sent us into an extinction level event (ELE) indicates we should be in a cooling period, not a warming one. I often hear people say how 40 years ago, scientists were predicting we were heading into an ice age, so how can they be right about global warming? According to all the natural cycle data, we should be heading into an ice age. But we're not. And the reason is because of human-caused fossil fuel emissions. Not only have we thrown enough carbon/methane into the atmosphere to stop an ice age, we've thrown enough up there to reverse one.
The science on all this is not really that hard. We know that if so many parts per million of CO2 and/or CH4 enter the atmosphere, we will see X amount of corresponding increase in global temperature. CO2 increases or decreases and global temperatures track together almost in lockstep as far back as we care to measure. So these are easy extrapolations to make based on the measurable amounts of CO2/CH4 in our atmosphere today. Scientists have long said we are in a serious danger zone to exceed 380 ppm of CO2. In April, we now measure 402 ppm -- the highest amount in more than 800,000 years, the highest ever in human history.
Accepting what is true is the first step to making any change.
FWIW.
