it's official - global warming is real

[gib65]

The official report on global warming was announced today. Scientists made a formal statement saying that global warming is real, it is escalating at a dangerously fast rate and will make life unbearable within a few decades, and it is due to human emissions of CO2.

[ecoli]

No offense, but this isn't a great post. Not all scientists are created equally... yes, some of them even have political agendas. You don't say what group made this formal statement, or where their funding is coming from.

 

Also, there is a difference between saying global warming is occurring (which the data seems to support) and that humans are causing global warming (which is definitely still open to debate).

 

At the very least, please provide some sources so I can attempt to debate them properly... Like what type of climate modeling systems they are using and how they can make such a definitive statement about their predictions. You see, the earth's systems are so complicated that to say what life is going to be like in a couple of decades is fairly impossible.

[CPL.Luke]

I believe gib65 is referring to the 3rd annual IPCC report, which stated that global warming is occuring and that humans are the primary cause.

 

the report was authored by over 2000 climate scientists. I would say that settles the debate.

[bascule]

I believe gib65 is referring to the 3rd annual IPCC report, which stated that global warming is occuring and that humans are the primary cause.

 

the report was authored by over 2000 climate scientists. I would say that settles the debate.

 

Actually it's the second volume of the fourth assessment report. We discussed the first volume, which provides the physical science basis (and argues human factors are the primary cause), earlier this year. This volume addresses impacts and vulnerabilities, like how an additional 500 million people will be without safe drinking water in another 15 years.

[the tree]

Nonetheless, it being "real" is hardly news.

[gib65]

I believe gib65 is referring to the 3rd annual IPCC report, which stated that global warming is occuring and that humans are the primary cause.

 

the report was authored by over 2000 climate scientists. I would say that settles the debate.

 

Thank you.

[john5746]

You see, the earth's systems are so complicated that to say what life is going to be like in a couple of decades is fairly impossible.

 

The human body is complicated also. While it is very difficult to know what will happen to my body tomorrow if I eat McDonalds and smoke, it is very likely that I will be sick if I do this for 20 years.

[ecoli]

The human body is complicated also. While it is very difficult to know what will happen to my body tomorrow if I eat McDonalds and smoke, it is very likely that I will be sick if I do this for 20 years.

 

As I understand it, more research has been done with the human body than the earth. Not to mention, the human lifespan is shorter so, experimentally, we can see what happens to it when subjected to "bad stuff." We can't observe the entire lifespan of our earth the same way or conduct controlled experiments on it. The best we can do is come up with mathematical/computer models that attempt to approximate the earth's systems. There are so many variables, however, that this is a very difficult thing to accurately do.

 

There's no real doubt in my mind that global warming exists and that humans are possibly contributing to it. What I don't like is how people (especially the political left) are attempting to create a state of fear about it, before all the facts are available. I don't like global warming being used as a political ploy to gather votes. I don't think the research is complete enough to be afraid yet.

 

I'm still very willing to believe that the current global warming is, at least in part, due to earth's natural cycles, so we have to tread carefully before we start implementing potentially economically damaging solutions to something that may not be a problem.

[john5746]

I'm still very willing to believe that the current global warming is, at least in part, due to earth's natural cycles, so we have to tread carefully before we start implementing potentially economically damaging solutions to something that may not be a problem.

 

I agree completely. The solutions need to be effective and not damaging in some other way as well as economically viable. We should be discussing the possible solutions instead of dismissing the problem, IMO.

[PhDP]

I don't think the research is complete enough to be afraid yet.

 

There's something dangerous with this kind of reasoning. Climate scientists are pretty clear that GW is probably caused by humans, and it's also pretty clear that many people will suffer from this, yet we're going to wait because of "economically damaging solutions" ? That's reasonable ?

 

There are so many variables, however, that this is a very difficult thing to accurately do.

 

But if you read carefully what climate scientists are saying, they don't claim to be able to predict precisely how much our climate will change, but they're able to establish a trend and they're narrowing uncertainty.

[Sisyphus]

What I don't like is how people (especially the political left) are attempting to create a state of fear about it, before all the facts are available.

 

I guess you have to ask yourself what's worse:

 

A) For political reasons (getting the base riled up, villainizing the opponents), exaggerating and creating fear about something which is probably actually true, anyway, and probably actually does need be acted upon?

 

OR

 

B) For political reasons (saving your contributors money in the short term, ridiculing your opponents), ignoring/stifling scientific consensus through borderline censorship and manufacturing false controversy and doubt, probably at the cost of enormous long-term economic and environmental damage?

 

Let's not be one-sided about this...

[ecoli]

There's something dangerous with this kind of reasoning. Climate scientists are pretty clear that GW is probably caused by humans, and it's also pretty clear that many people will suffer from this, yet we're going to wait because of "economically damaging solutions" ? That's reasonable ?

I was trying to imply that we should try to find solutions that are not economically damaging immediately while we wait for more accurate models to be produced.

 

 

But if you read carefully what climate scientists are saying, they don't claim to be able to predict precisely how much our climate will change, but they're able to establish a trend and they're narrowing uncertainty.

It depends on who you talk to. Politicians seem to be more certain than scientists about global warming.

 

A) For political reasons (getting the base riled up, villainizing the opponents), exaggerating and creating fear about something which is probably actually true, anyway, and probably actually does need be acted upon?

 

OR

 

B) For political reasons (saving your contributors money in the short term, ridiculing your opponents), ignoring/stifling scientific consensus through borderline censorship and manufacturing false controversy and doubt, probably at the cost of enormous long-term economic and environmental damage?

 

Sorry, didn't mean to present only one side. We definitely should trying to think long term about this... which is hard when there is so much uncertainty.

 

But I can't believe that they are no solutions that won't hurt the present economy while still reducing our impact on global warming.

 

Creating new alternative fuel industries, for example.

[gib65]

We do need to watch out for how much value we place on "proof". Don't get me wrong - obviously we need good solid proof that global warming is real and we are the primary cause, but we shouldn't place more importance on this than on solving the problem itself.

[ecoli]

We do need to watch out for how much value we place on "proof". Don't get me wrong - obviously we need good solid proof that global warming is real and we are the primary cause, but we shouldn't place more importance on this than on solving the problem itself.

 

But if we don't know exactly what's causing the problem, finding a solution is that much more difficult, and we run the risk of wasting a lot of time and money on trying to find a solution in the wrong place.

[Dak]

that's true. but, at the same time, we're sure enough that global warming is happening, and we're sure enough that human-made CO2 emissions are contributing significantly, that we can kinda justify actually starting to take mesures, rather than waiting around for the certainty to go up a few % so that we're 100% certain that CO2 emissions are partially to blame.

 

does anyone have a link to what's being discussed? i thought the ipcc released their 4th thingy recently?

[bascule]

But if we don't know exactly what's causing the problem, finding a solution is that much more difficult, and we run the risk of wasting a lot of time and money on trying to find a solution in the wrong place.

 

We don't know exactly how waveform collapse works. Does that mean we should reject the standard model, or at the very least be "distrustful" of it?

[gib65]

I'm going to digress for a moment, but I'll bring what I want to say back into the topic of GW.

 

I've been listening to some interviews with Mark Pesce lately. He's an expert in the field of nanotechnology and one thing he talks about in an interview with Art Bell is nanites, nano-sized robots or computers whose components are on the order of just a few atoms big. He talks about how these little machines can be deployed into almost any material object in order to manipulate and change their structure and form on a molecular level. They can even be deployed into the human body to seek out cancerous cells or viruses and destroy them.

 

One thought that occurred to me was that if these things can manipulate matter on the molecular scale, couldn't they be deployed into the atmosphere to deal with CO2 molecules? Even if they can't chemically change CO2 molecules, at least they can bring them back to the ground so that we can do something with them.

 

The great thing about them is that they are extremely cheap. They are incredibly light and so it wouldn't take much to launch them up there. Also, one of the great things about them is that they are self-replicating. A small group of these things can seek out raw materials that are readily available in the environment and build copies of themselves out of it. So all you'd need is a handful of these guys, and given enough time and the means to go up into the atmosphere, they could probably clean up a lot of our pollution. No?

[ecoli]

We don't know exactly how waveform collapse works. Does that mean we should reject the standard model, or at the very least be "distrustful" of it?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're comparing something that happens on the quantum level to something that's happening on the "newtonian" level. If I understand physics correctly, this is a 'no-no'.

 

Also, I don't know what a waveform collapse is, so that analogy doesn't work for me... nor for the greater public, I assume.

[1veedo]

Well the issue was,

But if we don't know exactly what's causing the problem, finding a solution is that much more difficult, and we run the risk of wasting a lot of time and money on trying to find a solution in the wrong place.

We do know exactly what's causing the problem. This undermines the whole wave-collapse quantum/newtonian discussion because global warming is caused by greenhouse gases.

[ecoli]

Well the issue was,We do know exactly what's causing the problem. This undermines the whole wave-collapse quantum/newtonian discussion because global warming is caused by greenhouse gases.

 

We think we know that greenhouse gases are contributing to global warming. This is not the end of the story, or people wouldn't still be spending millions on new and better super-computers to model climate systems. We are far from understanding completely earth's systems in relation to global warming.

 

I still don't know what this has to do with wave-collaspe...

[GutZ]

I still don't know what this has to do with wave-collaspe...

 

Well it was analogy....

 

Like the doubt slit experiment, the electron will create interference patterns even if they are shot out one by one, but the moment you try to observe this for some reason the wave function collapses and you get particle like behaviour.

 

...I think...and I don't get what the function part is all about but it's stated it that way alot so I use it too...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefunction_collapse

[ecoli]

Well it was analogy....

 

Like the doubt slit experiment, the electron will create interference patterns even if they are shot out one by one, but the moment you try to observe this for some reason the wave function collapses and you get particle like behaviour.

 

...I think...and I don't get what the function part is all about but it's stated it that way alot so I use it too...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefunction_collapse

 

Doesn't QM demonstrate this via mathematics? The whole system works in a physically different way then what we are used to in our Newtonian world. The only way we have to understand the way it works is with mathematics and indirect observations.

 

Theoretically, since the earth operates according to Newtonian physics, we should have the potential to understand how the climate systems and global warming works, without having to guess about the factors.

 

I don't think the analogy works.

[GutZ]

Doesn't QM demonstrate this via mathematics? The whole system works in a physically different way then what we are used to in our Newtonian world. The only way we have to understand the way it works is with mathematics and indirect observations.

 

Theoretically, since the earth operates according to Newtonian physics, we should have the potential to understand how the climate systems and global warming works, without having to guess about the factors.

 

I don't think the analogy works.

 

Well I think he was stating more to the fact that if you have a small percentage of an element being uncertian that the other X amount majority doesn't become worthless and a criteria for junk theory. Not so much focused on you know QP vs Climate Systems.

[ecoli]

Well I think he was stating more to the fact that if you have a small percentage of an element being uncertian that the other X amount majority doesn't become worthless and a criteria for junk theory. Not so much focused on you know QP vs Climate Systems.

 

True... but let's say we had a unified field theory that allowed us to understand the quantum world fairly easily. We wouldn't really need to hang onto quantum mechanics, which is a complex representation.

 

Similarly, if we put serious effort into climate system research, we could throw away a lot of old ideas and guess work about the factors affecting global warming.

 

I suppose I'm too much of a skeptic to accept at face value that humans are the primary cause of global warming. I've read too many conflicting stories to have made up my mind yet. I'm also mistrustful about the politics associated with it... it tends to skew the data, no matter which side you're presenting from. I'm trying to stay in the middle here.

[GutZ]

Yeah well it true, both sides have lots to gain ($$$). Everything is a frickin political statement.

 

Plus I mean, If they can't even tell when it going to rain...