Compiled by S. C. Raine (mungascr) from media sources listed.

1. Over the past century the Earth has warmed by 0.63 degrees, if
carbon dioxide levels are doubled by the end of this century as
predicted it will bring about 3 degrees of climate change. (Tim
Flannery `3 degrees to disaster’ in `The Advertiser’, 2005-May-16th.)

2. 2-3 degrees of climate change would result for Australia in
catastrophic loss of ancient mountain rainforest, complete loss of
the * world’s * coral reefs, complete devastation of Kakadu National
Park, rising sea levels and storm surges. (Tim Flannery `3 degrees to
disaster’ in `The Advertiser’, 2005-May-16th.)

3. To stabilise (not restore – stabilise) the planetary climate CO2
levels need to be cut by 70 % by 2050. The Kyoto protocol only cuts
emissions by 5% if it is implemented successfully. (Tim Flannery `3
degrees to disaster’ in `The Advertiser’, 2005-May-16th & `Climate
of Concern’, Adelaide Review, March 2004.)

4. The 2003 European summer heatwave which killed 19,000 people was
the hottest on the continent in 5 centuries according to researchers.
(Advertiser, 04-March-6th.)

5. The nature of rainfall has changed in Australia since 1975; the
heavy persistent winter rains have become lighter and more variable
and we’ve experienced five droughts and two floods – a statistical
oddity expected only once every 5000 years.
6. (Tim Flannery `3 degrees to disaster’ in `The Advertiser’, 2005-
May-16th.)

7. The North Polar icecap has lost 40 %of its thickness and is
predicted by the end of this century it will have disappeared
entirely in summer – destroying the Arctic habitat on which polar
bears ,seals , etc ..depend. (Tim Flannery `3 degrees to disaster’
in `The Advertiser’, 2005-May-16th.)

8. A leaked Pentagon report suggests climate change could be sudden
and dramatic with the biosphere lurching from one climatic state to
another in less than a decade with apocalyptic consequences. (Weekend
Aust’n Magazine, P.8, 2004, March 20-21st.)

9. The 1990′s were the warmest decade in the past 2000 years as
evidenced by tree-ring and sediment data analysed by a Swedish
research team. (Advertiser, `05 March 1st.)

10. All 18 Peruvian glaciers have been melting; incl. the Pastouri
glacier covering the most popular skiing peak in the Andes which has
shrunk by 19 m every year since 1980. It now covers 25 % less than a
quarter of a century ago. Peru has lost 20 % of its glaciers in the
past 30 years. This increases the likelihood of severe mudslides in
the short term and drought in the longer term. ( Advertiser, 04-Aug.-
7th.)

11. The Climate Research Group at the University of Illinois has
stated that there is a 45 % chance that the Gulfstream current will
be halted by the end of this century and a 70 % chance of it being
halted by 2200 due to climate change. This would have extremely
harmful effects on the Northern hemispheres climate esp. for Britain,
Europe and North America. (P.10, `Guardian Weekly’, `05-Feb-11th-
17th.)

12. Extra CO2 in the atmosphere is not only raising temperatures but
also making the oceans more acidic : CO2 reacts with water to produce
carbonic acid. This threatens to wipe out entire marine ecosystems.
(P.10, `Guardian Weekly’, `05-Feb-11th-17th.)

13. A 2003 University of Texas study discovered 99 species of
birds, butterflies and Alpine Herbs have shifted 600 m north each
year because of global warming. (P.13, Guardian Weekly, 20-26th
May ’05.)

14. Fish in the North Sea have migrated to cooler waters as the sea
warms – 21 species have shifted their distribution in line with
rising sea temps and 18 species have moved much further north.
Research conducted by the University of East Anglia & the (UK) Centre
for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture. (P.13, Guardian Weekly, 20-
26th May ’05.)

15. Greenland’s icesheet is melting faster than predicted as shown
by photographs and measurements of its major glaciers (Recent TV news
report)

***

Draw your own conclusions from the above but remember :

This is just a mere handful of the evidence for radical human-induced
climatic and environmental change for the worse. There’s a coastline full more of such information and research indicating the same grim tidings relating to our planetary environment and what we are doing to it.

Moreover, note that there is also a time lag factor with the climate
change and that not only are the effects and pollutants working in a
cumulative manner they are also interacting with each other with
potentially numerous unforeseen and grim results –things could
snowball very quickly for the worse.

I strongly feel that we do have a very serious problem here which we
are not taking adequate steps to address and that climate change and the
consequences of human environmental abuse pose our very gravest
threat.

I really fear for the future and advocate immediate dramatic action
if we wish to avoid some very calamitous changes which gravely
threaten not just Western society but all Humanity!

a) abnormal

Yes it is. The smoking gun is that the rising temperature trend is occurring at the same time as an unprecedented rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. This makes the current warming trend stand out among similar trends in the past that lack large CO2 rises.

b) caused, or even influenced in a significant way, by human activity

If CO2 concentration rises, the Earth will warm. This is a basic consequence of CO2 infrared absorption properties, and to deny increased CO2 has the capability to warm the planet is to deny well-known and laboratory verified physics.

The obvious following question is what is causing the CO2 rise. There is no simple demonstration that humans are a major cause of that, although it can be shown easily that one source, volcanoes, are not. If volcanoes were the major source, the Mauna Loa CO2 record should spike every time a major eruption (El Chicon, Pinatubo) occurred. The record does not reflect these eruptions at all. Beyond that, the only way to figure out the carbon sources are through difficult carbon-balancing studies. That topic is a little out of my realm, so I will point you to the Real Climate page “How much of the recent CO2 increase is due to human activities?”

c) not going to stop tomorrow

Come on. The climate is hard to move, but it has inertia. Like pushing on a military hovercraft, getting it to move is hard, but once it is going, God help anyone in the way. The oceans are the real kicker here, as they store enormous amounts of energy (relative to land or the atmos), and so once they are perturbed enough to start changing, it would likely take several hundred years for them to return to “normal” if the initial perturbation was immediately removed.

d) going to go on in a runaway burn and destroy the earth

Don’t be silly…

I would like to make an additional comment here: Don’t forget that there are MANY ways to measure climate change. Global mean temperature is just one of them. Relying on global mean temp alone can lead to incorrect conclusions, as I discussed above. Modern GW doesn’t look substantially unusual in the long-term temperature record alone (ignoring that almost all other changes occurred when Earth has much more ice coverage), but it most certainly looks unusual when taking CO2 measurements into account as well. There are many other indices to consider when monitoring climate change, like changes in average diurnal and annual temperature ranges, changes in equator-pole temperature differences, land-ocean temperature differences, precipitation changes, and, of course, the physical effects warming has on other aspects of the planet (e.g. glaciers). Global mean temperature is useful to measure, but it is only one number, and one number can only carry so much information. Be careful drawing conclusions from one number alone.

1) Is the climate changing? Umm yep – bit of a no brainer there to start with.
1a) has it always been changing? Would have to say yes it has.
1b) But I guess the issue is time scales and rates of change and absolute amounts.
1c) Is there such a thing as the global climate? There seems to be too much variation accross the earth to be able to nail a single definition of global climate down.

2) Have humans affected the climate. Can’t beleive that we haven’t, UHI, land use chages, deforestation, agriculture, massed house and road buildings …. (and thats just us in Europe).
2a) But in what way have each of these affected the climate, positive or negative, if these are even sensible terms of reference? Sorry not I’m smart enough to answer that one.

3) Can we do anything about it in a predicatable way? To my mind and knowledge of control theory, not very well, not if we can’t answer Q2.

So i guess all I am doing is repeating the Squids message slightly differently (mine in caps)

“We shouldn’t ONLY be concerned about global warming – we should be concerned about how and why we destroy our environment in general.”

Because i get the feeling that politicians are using Global Warming as an excuse not to do other harder things to help the world. But that is another rant entirely.

“We shouldn’t be concerned about global warming – we should be concerned about how and why we destroy our environment in general.”

Global average temperature is increasing. The debate is over the cause. See my post above.

Unfortuately, 100 years of temperature measurements is hardly proof of anything other than a short-term trend.

That’s the downfall of “global warming”.

It is demonstrable that the world is getting warmer in the short term. It is NOT demonstrable that this is:

a) abnormal
b) caused, or even influenced in a significant way, by human activity
c) not going to stop tomorrow
d) going to go on in a runaway burn and destroy the earth

The planet has been this warm in the past, indeed, I am sure I’ve read that paleoclimatologists (or whatever they are called) have noted that there have been periods when it was WARMER in the past.

This is not to say that we should continue to burn fossil fuels as fast as we can dig them up, but I will suggest that in the next 100 years, wars and pollution related to the use of fossil fuels will kill more people and destroy more environment than all the global warming in that time period, however the warming is caused.

It is a HIGHLY political issue. Many people need to disabuse themselves of the idea that scientists ae somehow above politics and ideology. Working in a technical field, I have found such people to be even MORE susceptible to such degenerate thinking. I’ve lost count of the number of people whose scientific knowledge I respect, but I want to run screaming into the night when they start yammering on any other topic. I can’t belleive such people can be so naive on various aspect of reality and human nature, but they are.

Personally, I don’t care about the GW issue. I’m such a misanthrope at this point in my life that anything thhat messes with humanity is fine by me. When I watch asteroid movies, I root for the asteroid.

But this whole “EVERYONE AGREES AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS AN IDIOT” is just propaganda in the fine tradition of Stalin. Just tell the lie often enough. Or was that Hitler? Ah, who cares.

I have twice attempted a rather lengthy response. The first was “submitted to the spam monitor” and the second was tagged as a “duplicate comment”

At this point I am frustrated and just give up…

http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

Please, please stop using this wrong argument; I have a hard time taking anything else you say seriously when you do.

For point 5, you can do the modelling yourself- Columbia U has a GCM that will run on a PC, here:
http://edgcm.columbia.edu/

Please excuse my ignorance and I’m being serious here, I have not seen anything about the consequences. Please educate me.

Sly: What caused the cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s? Did CO2 go on vacation?

The dozens of other major processes controlling Earth’s climate do not instantly shut down when excess carbon is introduced, of course. In fact, I would not be fatally shocked to see such a dip appear in the temp record within the next few decades. And for the record, the models suggest that increasing carbon content was not as influential on temperature back the as it is today. Earth’s climate has inertia, after all.

Max Fagin: And taking such drastic actions based on an often wrong hypothesis is a dangerous move.

This is LIFE. As beings with limited knowedge, we have to make decisions based incomplete information. There is a wide range of outcomes that GW could produce, and many of them are very capable of leaving very nasty marks on the economy, much deeper than mitigation would. This is even more troublesome when you include many of the other issues we will be dealing with at the same time (e.g. dwindling oil supply). Of course it is possible that GW will turn out to be harmless. But you have to also consider the risks involved in assuming this and taking a passive stance in preparation as well. Simply ignoring the problem could be as poor a decision (or worse) than taking an overly-aggressive stance. That is why rationality and caution are needed.

On the Kyoto protocol, the main benefit the protocol gives us is TIME. If we can slow the oncoming warming, we will have more time to learn about GW’s consequences, and more time to develop a cost- and environmentally-effective plan to deal with it. Yes, implementing the protocol is expensive. But it is an investment, not a permanent sacrifice. And the returns are better science and savvy economic policies.

And I still disagree that AGW is just a hypothesis. You are underappreciating the decades of observations taken to learn more about the topic, and the complexity of Earth’s climate. As noisy and as regionally-dependent as the observations are, the heart of AGW theory – that increasing carbon concentration is driving up the global mean temperature – is testable, has been tested observationally and with numerical models, and is verified with a lot of confidence. Details are certainly important, but don’t get hung up on them.

Politics are also a detail in climate science. But if you must, don’t forget that certain national governments are currently already involved in handing out large subsidies and loopholes to appease certain industries, which many people find less than ethical. Maybe I am a rarity in the environmental world, but I sincerly hope that GW and other things can be dealt with effectively without harsh government intervention. I don’t want that kind of world. But sometimes we cannot have everything we desire…

Lassiz faire works. Auto makers would use seat belts and safety glass even if it wasn’t regulated. Americans care about safety and their willing to pay a few extra bucks to protect themselves.

As for purchasing better cars, just wait. People don’t go out and buy a new car every month. If prices stay this high, I guarantee you the 2007 car models will be fuel efficient, and cleaner. Exactly like what happened in the 1970′s during the oil shortage.

Government can use regulation to some effectiveness. But the problem is it tends to get way out of hand. Once the government learns that it can regulate something, They will ask themselves “What else can we control?” In the long run resulting in more and more regulation.

Successfully controlling all the factors of an economy by government regulation is impossible, thats a fact. But lassiz faire does it all automatically.

I warned you all. Green on the outside, red on the inside. WATERMELONS!!!!!

I think your wrong there, but I’m not going to confront you on that topic. Trust me, we’ll never get anywhere.

But there are some other points you made that I will confront.

You seem to think that the U.S. is to blame for Global Warming because we didn’t sign Kyoto. That’s not true. The only difference between the countries that have signed Kyoto and those that haven’t, is a scribble on a piece of paper. The sad fact is that EVERY OTHER RATIFYING COUNTRY IS DOING JUST AS POORLY AS WE ARE! Thats right, Kyoto would have failed whether or not the U.S. had signed it. Lassiz faire in action.

Even if Kyoto did work, it’s effect would be completely unnoticeable. When first put into action, it was claimed that Kyoto would prevent between .02 and .09 Degrees C of warming. Not significant in the big picture.

You also said that:

“I don’t believe that concerned individuals or altruistic private corporations can have a greater effect on a global problem without the support of their government in conjunction with other nation’s governments.”

Who said they had to be altruistic? Who said they even had to care about the environment? Did Toyota produce the Prius because they wanted to curb CO2 emissions? Of course not. They did it because they realized people didn’t want to drive gas guzzling smog belching SUV’s anymore. Despite all the governments regulations and tax’s, it was ultimately capitalism and lassiaz faire that made the first step in cleaning up car emissions.

The situation is still the same. Governments are trying to regulate people into living a less polluting lives, but obviously they are not succeeding. What will work is when people wake up on morning and decide to pollute less on their own. Once that happens their will be dozens of new products and energy sources to supply that demand.

Just like with global warming. If the environment does reach a point where AGW becomes a threat, people will change their lifestyles automatically.

Global warming is the way things are, whether by human activity, cyclic variation in solar output or just one too many damn vocanoes. It doesn’t matter as long as we have the ability to affect just ONE of the determinant factors(green house gasses) we should exercise as much control as we are able.

Social control of business activity is a well established equalizer of the business playing field. Safety glass and seat belts had to be mandated by law, as they were not “cost effective” for a single manufacturer to implement. Same held true for auto polution control. Everybody had to adhere to the same standards or else those who tried to do so unilaterally would be working at an economic disadvantage with those who chose to ignore the greater good and just go for the profit.

Consumer choice is not as effective as lassaiz faire capitalists would have us believe. At current fuel prices one would think there would be a massive stampede to purchase fuel efficient cars, but people are still buying Lincoln navigators and Humvees, while they complain about the high cost of running the things. Neither will most people voluntarily drive their vehicles at 55, just to save gas. It’s easier to gripe about the “dad gum A-Rabs and oil industry greed”, rather than accept that oil is a finite resource that is RUNNING OUT.

Social control will reduce fuel consumption as it is mandated by law, but even that only works if people grumblingly comply. So too with global warming.

We’re all in this boat together. Too bad we seem to have idiots steering the damn thing,,,

Gary 7

As I said in my last post, I’m all for “reducing the risk,” provided it’s done the right way.

My greatest fear is that the US government and others will use global warming as an excuse to enact such things as mandatory emission standard, heavy taxation and unfair subsidies. Have you ever heard of the political term “Watermelon?” It’s used to imply that someone is using environmentalism to promote socialist ideas (Green on the outside, Red on the inside.)

As I’ve said before, I believe that humans running their natural course will address the issue of global warming. And if it is a threat, solve it.

I’m also confident that if any government try’s to address the problem with a regulatory “Top-down” strategy, they will only make things worse. Both for us, and for the environment.

I think debating the strength of the evidence is a little bit wrong headed in this situation. It’s academic and abstracted and doesn’t really apply to the actuality of what may be happening.

Allow me to exagerate for sake of illustration. Say there was a 90% chance of everything being just fine in the next century and a 10% risk of total disaster. And by taking action we could reduce that risk to 1%. Isn’t it worth the effort to try and do something?

So, though as far as I can tell the indicators are lining up and the odds are tipping towards some real disatserous stuff, I respect your dissent on the academic level. But I still much rather see people taking this seriously.

I’d hate for the arguments to go on until it was too late.

I know I’ve made this point before, and I know you’ve responded to it, still I feel like I have to make it again.

There are over 160,000 glaciers on this planet. Scientists have only studied about 80 with scientific precision for longer that 5 years.

So scientists have only studied .05% of this planets glaciers with any level of scientific precision. And a great deal of these glaciers are not melting.

You pointed out last time that we didn’t need scientific precision for many of the glaciers because we have things like old photographs, explorers measurements and natives testimony that put the glacier as larger sometime in the past. I don’t think this is a legitimate way of making measurements. Who knows, maybe this glacier was in the middle of a freak surge at the time? Maybe it goes through natural 100 year cycles? Once you allow that kind of evidence onto the playing field you open yourself to all kinds of problems.

If you use only the pure data to draw your scientific picture, the trend in glacier expansion / retreat is not clear.

Redrefractor

My point is that taking the kind of action proposed to level green house gas emissions will take it’s toll on the economy. Maybe it will have the long term benefits your proposing, but maybe not. I don’t think they will. Government developed technologies are very slow to enter the private market.

And taking such drastic actions based on an often wrong hypothesis is a dangerous move. Would you feel confident staking your economy on the validity of say, String Theory/Hypothesis?

Finally, It sounds like your advocating direct government controls (research subsidies, taxes, energy credits) to help nations cut down on Greenhouse gas emissions.

This will not work.

Kyoto proposed a top-down policy like this, and despite the hype, no major ratifying nation is making its quota. I really don’t think the government has the ability to curb our greenhouse gas emissions.

What will work (And what I believe will happen) is if we allow our economies to run their courses, Adam’s invisible hand will kick in. Burning fossil fuels is not a clean way to produce power, and if there are negative environmental effects (Global Warming or otherwise) people will realize that, and make the shift to cleaner sources automatically. If the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is promoted to a theory, that shift will occur all the quicker. The private market won’t destroy the planet if there is money to be made in saving it. And trust me, there is.

If ALL anthropogenic GHG emissions were reduced to zero, how much warming would be avoided?