THE thread for climate skeptics.

[Leonhard]

Hi Teal.

That's a lot of stuff to parse. I'll try to answer it all, but I can't cover everything equally. Especially since I know next to nothing about politics.

In the Seventies we were told we'd all freeze. Then the planet was heating up.

I wasn't around in the seventies to know anything about this. God put me on this earth in 1986, everything before that is stuff I'm told about. The narrative I hear a lot from American conservatives is that scientists seemed adamant in the seventies that the world was going to freeze. It's quite a research project to try to piece together what news articles and popular scientific journals were talking about in the seventies, and whether such an idea was widespread. I do know that Arthur C. Clarke was convinced of it.

In hard science articles printed in peer-reviewed journals its a much smaller number. I forget now the exact one, but I seem to recall a discussion somewhere which produced less than a dozen articles from that era making those predictions. It was all based on observing a small decline in temperature. Note it was a much smaller decline than the the increase we're seeing. Apparently it quickly fell out of favor in the scientific circles, though I still wonder how much the first idea echoed around in the media echo chamber.

The media, in my experience, isn't interested in doing follow up to science stories. If something is later disproven it rarely makes a news story.

Now climate is changing - which seems the silliest observation of all.

Sure, if all scientists were pointing out is that the climate is changing, in any degree, then that would be trivial. We've known since the sixteenth century that the Earth's climate has undergone long periods of slow changes since the beginning. Rather it concerns some predictions from climate models in the sixties, based on very firm science of radiation in the atmosphere, indicating that humans could concievably have an impact on the global average temperature. The change that was and is fairly worrying is a very sharp increase in temperature since the seventies. Its not sharp in human terms, its barely one degree. Its extremely sharp in geological terms and completely without precedent. Its not one degree over a period of a couple of millenia. Its one degree in a period of only three decades.

Something like that kinda begs an explanation. One was already at hand, and even then it turned out to be fairly adequate to cover the increase. Sure today you have a very advanced and complex model that tries to take into account everything, in order to account even for the fine variations.

What I am unwilling to concede is that we should do a massive rewrite of public policy on this basis. For one, I haven't seen anything compelling that says we can come back from whatever brink we might

What sort of 'massive rewrites of public policy' do you think is under proposal. The most I hear about it ending the many subsidies and basically free land grants for the fossil fuel industry. Perhaps implement ways that prevented power corporations from punishing solar panel owners with tariffs that exactly offset the benefit of the solar cell (with flimsy arguments such as grid-support). And also in some cases adding subsidies and tax breaks for renewable energy use. Its basically stuff we already do, just transferred to other groups.

China alone will undermine anything the US does

China as far as I know are currently the largest producers of solar panels. Considering that they'd probably not survive as a superpower if they lose most of their crop fields to a six degree heating, its not hard to see that they'd be motivated to make it not the case.

And the thing that makes me actually skeptical of the whole thing is the 'climate change/global warming deniers' battle cry.

I've been called a tree-hugging, ignorant, liberal, SJW, snowflake hippie. I've called people deniers in the past, but these days I don't think it's productive in these discussions. I will call specific cases of appeal to pseudoscience denial, but never the persons, and usually not in discussions. I don't mind people critically examining the evidence, or challenging it. I do mind that they don't recycle bad arguments that have already been answered, or use pseudoscience to defend it. When something like that comes, I'll try to friendly show why its wrong. If they call me sheep and an idiot for not seeing it their ways... well...

I talk nice to people who talk nice to me.

The science is interwoven with the politics - that bed was made when Al Gore became spokesman.

Quite frankly I've never watched An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Never liked the style of those documentaries. Even if its broad message (climate change is happening; humans are causing it; bad consequences ahead; do something about it) its off on so many details, makes bad exaggerations, taking the most wild predictions rather than the conservative ones, etc.

I don't blame you for not liking propaganda.

The green side of the left is having a field day - climate change ever so conveniently gives them the excuse for forcing the planet to buy every sacred cow they want: ... ending any economic advancement that comes with an environmental expense

Thankfully the IPCC's actually has taken these things into consideration. For instance the weakest nations in Africa are recommended to pursue a purely fossil fuel based energy economy for the time being. More wealthy nations could take on a mixed transition. While the wealthiest of wealthy nations, like europe, scandinavia, russia and china, could actually make a full transition by 2050 (if enough resources are used on the project). That's Denmark's plan, we have a chance to develop a lot of the technology needed in transitioning a power grid from a stable centralized system, to a distributed system with a lot of unstable power sources integrated into it.

Its definitely not right, nor necessary (as their output would not be comparable to what ours is today), to ask the weakest countries who have their populations living like rich countries did in the 1850ies, to do what they simple don't have the means to do. They need electricity, washing machines, textile factories and steel mills to build the economies they barely have.

By all means, they need coal, oil and gas. Anyone suggesting otherwise is crazy or at least doesn't like seeing the smaller picture.

Any and all opposition is demonized

Sometimes yeah. I kinda get angry when Tobacco companies try to muddle the science to protect their profit. Same with Exxon. I recognise they have the right to do shady stuff like this, but I certainly don't like it.

But in my mind those are big, evil, faceless corporations. I can't very well have chat with them. They're dragons out there doing stuff. I can talk to a person though. Listen to them and try to understand what they say. Figure out why they think what they do and try to see if we can find common ground, and if I can articulate reasons the other can understand.

And the greatest lie of all - the science is 'settled' ... Yeah, eggs were bad for your heart - that science was 'settled' for thirty years - until it was proven not to be true.

Certainly science is never fully settled. Anything is disputable. If evidence comes in tomorrow that all of global warming is actually caused not by CO2, which somehow magically disappears into the ozone layer, but really is all due to something huge at the bottom of the ocean making lot of farts, then we'd have a field day of scientist venturing down to see this Lovecraftian monstrosity, winning prices, and we could all breathe a sigh of relief and not worry about the future.

I wouldn't mind that.

As it is now, the evidence has been piling on for several decades now that we're causing it, and that if we don't do something about it, the results could be quite bad economically for all of us. Its basically spend 1000$ now save 10000$ in the future, vs spend 500$ now and spend an extra 10000$ in the future.

People I respect (like Leo)

The egg industry was anything but happy when their product took the blame for millions of heart attacks but the scientific evidence at that time seemed sound. The political feathers ruffled but none of the 'you're all egg deniers' nonsense - specifically because the science could bear scrutiny (which doesn't seem to have made it right... ). But the opposite is happening with climate change ... The unwillingness to have the science criticized leaves room to question if it really can bear the scrutiny it should.

I think you'd have to elaborate what you mean with scientists not allowing themselves to be scrutinized. It could mean all sorts of things.

[Bill the Cat]

Why did the sea level rise so fast between 8,000 and 7,000 years ago, orders of magnitude faster than what humans are accused of doing?

Holocene_Sea_Level.jpg

[TheLurch]

Because the "cooling in the 1970s" thing came up earlier, i'd like to link this:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/...oming-ice-age/

It's a pretty comprehensive look at the state of the science back in the 1970s, and how that ended up getting badly distorted by the popular press at the time.

Several people have mentioned natural cycles, such as this:

I'm not particularly skeptical, but maybe someone can answer my question:

Is it possible to determine how much of this is humans accelerating and exacerbating a natural cycle?

Here's the thing about natural cycles: they're not magic. They have causes that we can detect, and effects that we can detect. So, a post on the prior page mentioned Milankovich cycles that drive the glacial periods. Those are natural cycles, and we know precisely how they operate, and could detect the changes if they were happening. Same thing with El Niño/La Niña. Those have a cyclical affect on the temperature, but we can detect the state the cycle's in, and see specific effects from it.

So, it's not scientific to just say "it's a natural cycle". We're really good at identifying what's cycling, and how that's influencing the climate. If you want to be scientific about things, you either have to identify what's cycling, or explain why something's cycling and all the people who study the climate have somehow missed it.


Incidentally, if you're really interested in how we go about identifying what's influencing the climate, the IPCC has a chapter on what it terms "attribution".
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-r..._Chapter10.pdf

There are approximately 600 references there, so it's pretty well backed up by research.

[TheLurch]

Why did the sea level rise so fast between 8,000 and 7,000 years ago, orders of magnitude faster than what humans are accused of doing?

That's when the ice sheets melted at the end of the last glacial period. If any of the Antarctic ice sheets collapse (and there's reason to think some might eventually - i can get into it if you're interested), we'll see similar rapid changes.

[TheLurch]

By all means, they need coal, oil and gas. Anyone suggesting otherwise is crazy or at least doesn't like seeing the smaller picture.

Actually, in a lot of cases, that's not entirely clear. To begin with, many of these countries don't have fossil fuel resources of their own. As a result, commitment to infrastructure like, say, a coal plant, means a commitment to spending money on fuel for the life of the installation. Buying a wind turbine avoids this sort of commitment (although comes with its own challenges). Plus it avoids all the health issues that come from burning coal, especially in countries that don't have decent environmental laws.

The other thing is that fossil fuel generation typically only works if you have a grid, and most of these countries aren't in a place where they can invest to expand their grid, or even stably maintain it the areas that are serviced by it. (Cities in India have grids, for example, but power typically goes out a couple of times a day). For many, many citizens of these countries, the quickest way to give them some at least some of the benefits of electricity is to get them a few solar panels, and let them set up a microgrid. The alternative is to tell them to wait for decades.

So, i don't think it's a blanket "give them fossil fuels". They'll probably need some (we don't have a good alternative to petroleum for transport at the moment), but for electricity, there are advantages to developing along a different path.

[Roy]

In the Seventies we were told we'd all freeze.

Wasn't that threat due to the amount of heat reflecting/absorbing dust being thrown into the atmosphere by nuclear bomb testing? I recall the phrase "nuclear winter" being used. The claim was that we would freeze if nuclear testing wasn't stopped. It stopped, and we didn't freeze.

[oxmixmudd]

Maybe if we moved off the planet earth, plant trees, and let it return to a natural vegetative and environmental state it would solve the problem over time.

Things have been much worse in the past (in terms of the survival of life on this planet). We are making a mess of things yes. But in the grand scheme of the history of life on this planet, and the temperature extremes this planet has seen, and the environmental disasters this planet has seen, we are still very much just a bit player.


Jim

[TheLurch]

Wasn't that threat due to the amount of heat reflecting/absorbing dust being thrown into the atmosphere by nuclear bomb testing? I recall the phrase "nuclear winter" being used. The claim was that we would freeze if nuclear testing wasn't stopped. It stopped, and we didn't freeze.

There was a discussion of the possibility of nuclear winter, but i'm pretty sure that required a large scale nuclear exchange. There was a concern about aerosol-driven cooling, but it focused on aerosols from coal burning.

[Bill the Cat]

That's when the ice sheets melted at the end of the last glacial period. If any of the Antarctic ice sheets collapse (and there's reason to think some might eventually - i can get into it if you're interested), we'll see similar rapid changes.

But why didn't it return to its level from 8,000 years ago when the ice sheets recovered?

[oxmixmudd]

Wasn't that threat due to the amount of heat reflecting/absorbing dust being thrown into the atmosphere by nuclear bomb testing? I recall the phrase "nuclear winter" being used. The claim was that we would freeze if nuclear testing wasn't stopped. It stopped, and we didn't freeze.

What I remember from that time is that the concern was we were at or near the end of the current inter-glacial period and things would start cooling down. And we may have been based what I've seen (not that my opinion or thoughts on the matter carry much weight). So from that point of view it would be possible one of the few positive benefits of AGW might be it has prevented or seriously delayed the next ice-age.

The nuclear winter thing was a different line of thought, analysis of what would happen if the US and USSR actually lobbed a few 10's or 100's of 5 to 10 Megaton bombs at each other. It wasn't pretty. But unrelated to the climate discussions of the '70's - more related to the then growing sense mankind has entered the phase of having the power to destroy or seriously cripple the environment on this planet.


Jim

[oxmixmudd]

But why didn't it return to its level from 8,000 years ago when the ice sheets recovered?

Have you noticed that the whole of Canada is not buried under 2 mile thick sheets of ice ...

[Bill the Cat]

Have you noticed that the whole of Canada is not buried under 2 mile thick sheets of ice ...

Exactly my question. If the massive ice sheets were basically melted, and the sea level raised that much that quickly, and it hasn't frozen back to prior levels, like when Canada was under ice, why should we expect a similar rapid changes as from 8K-7K years? It just seems to me that good ol' Mother Nature can do a far better job at raising the sea levels than humans are being accused of.

[oxmixmudd]

Exactly my question. If the massive ice sheets were basically melted, and the sea level raised that much that quickly, and it hasn't frozen back to prior levels, like when Canada was under ice, why should we expect a similar rapid changes as from 8K-7K years? It just seems to me that good ol' Mother Nature can do a far better job at raising the sea levels than humans are being accused of.

Antarctica and Greenland still have substantial Ice reserves. Where they all to melt, the sea levels would rise an additional 230 feet according to the sources I checked before writing this reply. That is quite a bit, though only about .6 what we saw after the ice age (380+ feet).

So we really don't want to warm things up enough to do that - otherwise we'd have to say goodbye to Disneyland, MGM studios, Sea World, the Statue of Liberty, Ocean City, The Baltimore Harbor, LA, and a whole host of other even more important places

Jim

[Roy]

What I remember from that time is that the concern was we were at or near the end of the current inter-glacial period and things would start cooling down.

I do recall a few scare stories based on discoveries of glacial and interglacial periods and the overblown claim that since we were in an interglacial it might end tomorrow, but I doubt there was any serious discussion of that possibility (not that I really looked, I was still at school then).

So from that point of view it would be possible one of the few positive benefits of AGW might be it has prevented or seriously delayed the next ice-age.

I think that is a real possibility.

The nuclear winter thing was a different line of thought, analysis of what would happen if the US and USSR actually lobbed a few 10's or 100's of 5 to 10 Megaton bombs at each other. It wasn't pretty. But unrelated to the climate discussions of the '70's - more related to the then growing sense mankind has entered the phase of having the power to destroy or seriously cripple the environment on this planet.

Technically we've had that since Prometheus. IIRC there was quite a shift in ecosystems when people started burning down forests to grow crops.

[Roy]

So we really don't want to warm things up enough to do that - otherwise we'd have to say goodbye to Disneyland, MGM studios, Sea World, the Statue of Liberty, Ocean City, The Baltimore Harbor, LA, and a whole host of other even more important places

Perhaps you should treat this problem as an opportunity. Think of the benefits of wiping away Miami, Macau, Amsterdam, Panama, Brunei, Tripoli, Bangkok and of course Washington DC, which is only 7ft above sea level