[BenV]

Bored,

The CO2 bandwagon has been getting noticeably lighter in recent years. One reason for this is the simple hysteria just LOOKS suspicious. ONLY 50 DAYS LEFT TO SAVE THE PLANET! I believe something like that was actually said by the highest official in one of the most advanced nations on earth just recently.

This was referring to the upcoming Copenhagen discussions on climate change, so nothing to do with 'hysteria' of any kind.

[litespeed]

Ben - I don't care WHAT it referred to. The fact this offical actually said that is prima facia evidence of hysteria.

Maybe you don't get it. Statements like this and others like it create a social climate of suspicion. JUSTIFIED suspicion in my opinion. If Gore shows me a forelorn Polar Bear on melting ice berg, while at the same time I have reports "there are a hell of a lot more Polar Bears", I take notice.

[Madidus_Scientia]

Warm is good, cold is bad, that simple is it?

Ok. Why is warm good?

[litespeed]

Madi

Warm is good for several reasons. First, it provides more arrible land. Excess agricultural production is the very deffinition of civilization.  How do you think Rome paid for the Flavian Amphitheater?  Wall Mart coupons?  No. The weather was such that excess food production, primarily from North Africa could be confiscated in the form of taxes to feed the workers. Then it got cold. No more wine from Britain! And of course the Northern Barbarians move South.

The very same thing in Old Kingdom Egypt.  The warm climate of the era provided rain to feed the Nile to such an extent the Pharoes could tax the excess agricultural production and feed tens of thousands of workers to produce, among other things, the Sphinx and the various Pyramids. 

Then it got cold. The Nile dried up so much that Lake-Whats-its-Name fed by the Nile dried up entirely for the only time in geographic record. We have actual old Kingdom hyroglyphic accounts it was so bad parents canabalized their own children.

Then just think about the very recent Ice Age.  I believe much if not all of the UK was under one or two hundred feet of ice. Certainly that was the case in North America. During the Ice Age Chicago was under something like ONE FRIGGN MILE of ice.  Having lived many years in Chicago I can attest to the advantages of warmer rather then cooler climate.

Or perhaps you prefer the colder, damper climate of the Bubonic Pague era. It only resulted in the death of, perhaps, half the entire population of Europe. But the whose counting!  After all, there are forelorn Polar Bears out there needing immediate rescue.

[Bored chemist]

Ben - I don't care WHAT it referred to. The fact this offical actually said that is prima facia evidence of hysteria.

Maybe you don't get it. Statements like this and others like it create a social climate of suspicion. JUSTIFIED suspicion in my opinion. If Gore shows me a forelorn Polar Bear on melting ice berg, while at the same time I have reports "there are a hell of a lot more Polar Bears", I take notice.

No, the fact that you cited it is prima facie evidence that you didn't understand it.

Also re the arrable land. The further from the equatror you push the boundary of "nice weather for farming" the smaller the area that's available.
It's something to do with the geometry of spheres.
The fact that it has been hotter and colder in the past doesn't make change good. It's the change that's the problem.

[litespeed]

Bored

Your last post suggests you are drunker then ME!  I am about out of beer, and will leave the stage.....

[Madidus_Scientia]

Warm is good for several reasons. First, it provides more arrible land.

There will be new arable land. Do you have evidence to say it will be more? There would be new arable lands in countries like Greenland and Canada, and higher rice yeilds in Northern China. However, at the same time:

China's grain harvest could be cut by 10% http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Global_warming_to_decimate_Chinas_harvests_999.html
Africa's food production will be halved http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/3883fde14bb3020c21fd8159ef50dd7c.htm
Crop disease may be boosted http://www.terradaily.com/reports/070814124316.rhrly4bx.html
Water shortages in the Mediterranean, flash floods along the Rhine, more than half of Europe's plant species will be at threat http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-5-2005_pg6_10
Encroachment of shrubs into grasslands, rendering rangeland unsuitable for domestic livestock grazing http://www.pnas.org/content/104/37/14724.abstract
Fresh water supplies for coastal communities will diminish http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/saltwatr.htm
Decreased water supply in the Colorado river basin http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL031764.shtml
Decreased water supply in the Murray-Darling basin http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL033390.shtml
Decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090126_climate.html

To name a few.

Not to mention CO2's effects on ocean acidification, and its possible far-reaching ramifications.

[Ethos]

Warm is good, cold is bad, that simple is it?

Ok. Why is warm good?

Because I won't have to wear that cumbersome Snuggy..........Bhurrrrrr!

[litespeed]

Madi,

Get yourself a wetsuit and start bringing those distraught Polar Bears to safety.  What you fail to realize is not all of us are Chumps. Lie to me about Polar Bear Populations, or past climate change, and you are history.

No second chances you fraudulent piece of iceberg flotsom.

[Bored chemist]

Bored

Your last post suggests you are drunker then ME!  I am about out of beer, and will leave the stage.....

No, stone cold sober (but perhaps a bit hungover). Even if I had been drunk it wouldn't have given you and excuse to ignore the facts.
Feel free to answer the points I made.

[peppercorn]

No second chances you fraudulent piece of iceberg flotsom.

This is getting worryingly close to an abusive attitude. People can be band from the forum for that, I've heard!
BTW, who's been lying to whom about polar bear populations?

[Madidus_Scientia]

Madi,

Get yourself a wetsuit and start bringing those distraught Polar Bears to safety.  What you fail to realize is not all of us are Chumps. Lie to me about Polar Bear Populations, or past climate change, and you are history.

No second chances you fraudulent piece of iceberg flotsom.

I have lied about nothing. You're attacking a straw man, I have said nothing of polar bears. You either didn't read or chose to ignore my points.

Abusing me will convince no one of anything, come back if you are ready to pull your head out of the sand and actually address arguments and facts.

[BenV]

Ben - I don't care WHAT it referred to. The fact this offical actually said that is prima facia evidence of hysteria.

Maybe you don't get it. Statements like this and others like it create a social climate of suspicion. JUSTIFIED suspicion in my opinion. If Gore shows me a forelorn Polar Bear on melting ice berg, while at the same time I have reports "there are a hell of a lot more Polar Bears", I take notice.

But you don't take notice of the actual content of an article that contains the "just 50 days..." quote?  Did you bother to read past the headline? I think this probably shows that you're predisposed towards a particular attitude on climate issues.

[litespeed]

Bored chemist - You wrote: "Let's take a planet and add lots of CO2 to the armosphere and see if the temperature goes up."

You will be happy to note the industial revolutions on Mars, Pluto, and other planets and moons have also warmed them up noticeably as well.  Of maybe its just second hand CO2.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html

[litespeed]

BenV,

The guy is a politician and knows how to get a headline. That was the headline he got. I have the normal suspicion of political discourse.  However, I have two questions for you: 1)have you heard of the "hocky-stick" graph of planetary temperatures over the last couple of thousand years; and 2) do you belive it?

[litespeed]

madi

I was not calling you a lier about Polar Bears, since you did not mention it. My post was simply an explanation that Nobel Prize Winner algore STILL will not admit there are more Polar Bears then in the recent past. His latest answer was just as political as ever "Are they on the endangered species list?"

The contradictions and inconsistency pile up like dirty snow in Chicago. There ARE more Polar Bears. Yes, the entire solar system seems to be warming. Yet, our planet now seems to be cooling right now. And yes, our planet has seen both warmer and colder spells over the millenium PRIOR to industrialization.

CO2 has been as high as 3000ppm, and the Jurassic period flourished. During the last Ice Age, with about the same CO2 as now, burried much of North America benieth a mile of ice. Having lived in Chicago, I would vote 3000 parts per million HOT, rather then 300ppm Ice Age. I shoveled my fair share of Chicago Snow. But one mile of ice would choke even the best Home Depot snow blower.

PS: The entire fiasco has become of supernatural indiference to me. Europe and Japan are going Nuclear, the US seems to be taking an appropriate Blow-Hard approach with windmills. The developing world will continue to burn fossile fuels. NONE OF THIS WILL CHANGE in our lifetimes. And I predict the sky will not fall.

[Bored chemist]

"CO2 has been as high as 3000ppm,"
[O2] used to be zero ppm so it couldn't do any harm to go back to that.


From this
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html
cited by litespeed...
"Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, recently linked the attenuation of ice caps on Mars to fluctuations in the sun's output"

And, from the same site
"As for Abdussamatov’s claim that solar fluctuations are causing Earth’s current global warming, Charles Long, a climate physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Washington, says the idea is nonsense.

“That’s nuts,” Long said in a telephone interview. “It doesn’t make physical sense that that’s the case.”
"

Shall we just say that the evidence doesn't seem altogether uncontraversial?

[litespeed]

Bored

I found my Roma Era warming studies.  It took a couple of hours. The following link shows a number of proxy studies, with summaries.  http://www.co2science.org/subject/r/summaries/rwpeuropenorth.php

The following link is from that summary and shows the Roman Era 6C warmer. I am skeptical about that particular number....  http://www.co2science.org/articles/V8/N40/C2.php

"Linderholm and Gunnarson (2005) utilized the well replicated period of 1632 BC to AD 2000 of the Jämtland multi-millennial tree-ring width chronology derived from living and subfossil Scots pines sampled close to the present tree-line in the central Scandinavian Mountains as a proxy for summer temperatures. Several periods of anomalously warm and cold summers were noted throughout this record: (1) 550 to 450 BC (Roman Warm Period), when summer temperatures were the warmest of the entire record, exceeding the 1961-1990 mean by more than 6°C, (2) AD 300 to 400 (Dark Ages Cold Period), which was "the longest period of consecutive cold summers," averaging 1.5°C less than the 1961-1990 mean, (3) AD 900 to 1000, a warm era corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period, and (4) AD 1550 to 1900, a cold period known as the Little Ice Age."

PS: This is a nice link to long scale co2/Temp tracking: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

[Madidus_Scientia]

[Bored chemist]

Bored

I found my Roma Era warming studies.  It took a couple of hours. The following link shows a number of proxy studies, with summaries.  http://www.co2science.org/subject/r/summaries/rwpeuropenorth.php

The following link is from that summary and shows the Roman Era 6C warmer. I am skeptical about that particular number....  http://www.co2science.org/articles/V8/N40/C2.php

"Linderholm and Gunnarson (2005) utilized the well replicated period of 1632 BC to AD 2000 of the Jämtland multi-millennial tree-ring width chronology derived from living and subfossil Scots pines sampled close to the present tree-line in the central Scandinavian Mountains as a proxy for summer temperatures. Several periods of anomalously warm and cold summers were noted throughout this record: (1) 550 to 450 BC (Roman Warm Period), when summer temperatures were the warmest of the entire record, exceeding the 1961-1990 mean by more than 6°C, (2) AD 300 to 400 (Dark Ages Cold Period), which was "the longest period of consecutive cold summers," averaging 1.5°C less than the 1961-1990 mean, (3) AD 900 to 1000, a warm era corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period, and (4) AD 1550 to 1900, a cold period known as the Little Ice Age."

PS: This is a nice link to long scale co2/Temp tracking: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

Who cares?

There never was any God-given promise that the sun wouldn't fluctuate.
However the fact remains that we cannot predict those fluctuations with any accuracy (apart from the 11 year sunspot cycle and even that's up a gum tree at the moment).

We can predict the effect of the excess CO2 and, in general, it's not good.
So we should try to reduce that excess.

What happened a hundred or a thousand years ago doesn't have a lot to do with whether or not we should invest in wind turbines today.