Oh boy, I'm not sure whether or not I should jump into this mess of a thread, but...
Art Eatman said:
This whole thread ain't on topic, but if folks will hold back on scorn and sarcasm, I'll let it run.
...I guess it's okay so far.
MikePGS said:
Since when do politicians care about science?
Well, the Bush administration seems to care a
lot about science... especially,
suppressing it.
dzimmerm said:
Why would a conservative that lives in land locked Ohio that is about 1000 feet above sea level care if the ocean level raised a few feet?
I can think of a few reasons... first, he'll have to deal with all the refugees from coastal cities. (Something like half the population in the US lives near the coast). Also, the increase in temperatures which leads to the rise in ocean levels could very well turn the midwest into another dust bowl.
Now, lets see, "marine ecosystems might crash", not sure what that means precisely, but in context it would seem to say that the climate getting warming would cause less algae to grow which would cause a domino affect throughout the foodchain ending up with less available food.
Marine ecosystems are already a disaster. Fish stocks are something like 10% of historical levels, and I understand squid populations are rapidly growing, as apparently squid reproduce faster (?) in warmer water. Plankton is extremely important, and it's getting hurt too.
Coral reefs are always damaged when fresher water is present. This is not something new.
Coral is dying en mass due to warmer water temperatures, and reefs provide some of the best and most diverse marine ecosystems.
Since we don't know what could happen we could also guess that warming could cause more available food in the ocean which might help end world hunger.
The error in your reasoning is that "we don't know what could happen" ... we
do know to a substantial, albeit imperfect degree. The models are becoming pretty good at predicting trends. There are questions as to how fast things will happen, but the trends are pretty well supported.
Another thing: rapid environmental change is
bad. Species don't adapt or evolve quickly enough to handle it. Combine that with other environmental effects such as pollution and habitat loss and you end up with mass extinctions. We're in the middle of one now, and the loss of biodiversity is a real problem.
Biodiversity is important; it makes for a more robust ecosystem. Monocultures (such as farmland) are extremely susceptible to disease and parasites and soil problems, which is why industrial farms have to use so much fertilizer and pesticide.
"Rain patterns and agriculture will be negatively effected", hmmmm, not even pretending a guess during that one. Well then again the sahara used to be grasslands and the carboniferous age was warmer also. Maybe warmer means more plants growing with more food available which means an end to world hunger.
The Sahara hasn't been grassland for about 2.5 million years, and it's a self-sustaining desert now (via feedback effects). There is a study suggesting that the Sahel (southern boundary of the Sahara)
might get more moisture, but it's uncertain. Even if it were to become more wet, sand isn't good soil for growing crops. (Neither is boreal forest, such as Siberia or Canada.)
Weather patterns are expected to become more extreme. Hail and high winds aren't exactly beneficial to crops. In general, present farmland is expected to become less productive.
The same kind of FUD meme has been developed about CCW and general gun ownership.
This isn't FUD:
Wikipedia said:
FUD is an abbreviation for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, a sales or marketing strategy of disseminating negative but vague or inaccurate information on a competitor's product. The term originated to describe misinformation tactics...
How do you equate a well-documented scientific consensus as being vague or inaccurate misinformation?
Somewhere the meme that global warming is a proven bad thing has developed with no factual basis behind it other than there will be rise in ocean levels. I will continue to point out that ocean levels rising affects those in certain areas that have the most to lose from their home being put under water.
A global temperature change of only a few degrees is
really significant. It's enough to transform vast tracts of the southwest from semi-arid to desert. The most serious damage will probably be desertification and a loss of biodiversity.
Seriously, guys... do you really think you're going to come up with valid criticisms of climate change in 10 minutes that people who've studied the problem for 10 or 20
years haven't considered?
Art Eatman said:
I ran across a recent article claiming that solar output has been increasing during the recent sixty years. Seems to me this would be causal...
It would, if it were substantially true. Insolation has increased slightly in recent times, but not
nearly enough to account for the changes we're already seeing.
We
know that CO2 increases atmospheric opacity to thermal infrared. (In particular, infrared astronomers like myself know what molecular lines do to atmospheric opacity.) Measuring this stuff is straightforward. And we
know that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are significant compared to natural CO2 emissions.
Upside to Globular Worming: More land available for grain production. Unknown: Changes in rainfall patterns, reducing land available for grain production.
Downside: the newly available land doesn't have good soil. Downside: the increased surface temperature will turn some fraction of currently productive land in temperate climates into unproductive land.
Kyoto calls for us to go back to the CO2 output of 1990, but does not restrict China or India. Absent a crash program of building nuclear power plants, how could we physically do this? Real world, that is, without wrecking our economy?
Our economy is going to take a hit, there's no question about it. However, studies indicate that the economy will take a
larger hit if we don't take early corrective action. That is, it'll be much more expensive to deal with the effects if we don't mitigate them in advance.
I'm not a big fan of Kyoto... oh, don't get me wrong, I think it was the right idea in general. But China and India must participate. Kyoto didn't go far enough.
Alternative power? Just for today's demand for electricity in Texas, to replace coal-fired power plants would require at least some 50,000 latest-technology wind generators. Off-the-shelf units? Over 100,000 units.
Nuclear... we should also invest heavily in fusion research. Wind, solar, and geothermal also deserve a lot more investment. No one technology will solve the problem, but a combination of many will certainly put a dent in CO2 emissions. And as a side benefit, if we didn't rely on fossil fuel, we wouldn't need to fight these
wars in the middle east.
My favorite "solution" is to apply a substantial tax to fossil fuels, with the proceeds going directly toward research and infrastructure in renewable, non-polluting technology and infrastructure (plus nuclear). The tax balances the "hidden cost" of the CO2 emissions, though it would probably have to over-balance the cost in order to make up for the last century of emissions.
To actually get to a nearly on-topic topic: How would Mr. & Mrs. Voter react to the Draconian ideas of the Watermelon claque, and what would be the results of their voting?
What were you saying before about sarcasm?
