Global Cooling. The sky is falling.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Actually it's happening in Albany, which is far enough inland that none of the shit will get into the ocean.

By my count there were a half dozen Republican members of Congress that have resigned in the past year because of similar issues that the NY AG committed.  They are all equally culpable and you cannot single out just one party for gross misconduct.  You need to be an equal opportunity place the blamer.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Well that really stirred things up. Facts usually do.

Okay, Alan, obviously the answer is for American taxpayers to come up with the loot to evacuate all Bangladeshis to California, where they can be taken care of.

What, exactly, is your solution, Alan? All I see on here is hand-wringing about (possibly) rising temperatures, and how we ought to reduce our production of CO2, though nobody's suggested how we might get the world to reduce CO2 emissions enough to have an effect on (maybe) rising temperatures (maybe) caused by CO2 emissions.

No where did I say it was the US's responsibility to deal with issues that those living in Bangladesh will have.  My point was there are a lot of people outside the US who will be impacted (and currently are) by extreme weather.

As to the solution, we covered a lot of this in the 'old' climate change thread which is archived here so you can go back and see what we wrote about only about four months ago. 

This is why I posted the comment to our moderator back on the first page of this thread.  It's impossible to have a reasoned discussion on this issue without resorting to name calling and snarky responses.  Oh well, as the French say, 'plus ça change plus c'est la même chose'

[Alan Klein]

Not that I condone the practices of German diesel manufacturers, but the U.S. cars are still almost twice as polluting as Europe's and Japan's. JATO’s study of the U.S. light vehicle market in the first quarter of 2010 reveals that the market’s average CO2 output is 268.5 g/km. In order to reflect like-for-like comparison with car markets in other global regions, excluding pick-up trucks, full size vans and small commercial vehicles, the figure falls to 255.6 g/km. This figure compares very unfavorably to Japan (130.8 g/km) and Europe’s five biggest markets, which average 140.3 g/km.

https://newatlas.com/us-european-japanese-car-market-co2-pollution/15485/

Les, the problem is Americans don't like driving kiddie cars.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Les, the problem is Americans don't like driving kiddie cars.

That explains the popularity of e.g. BMWs in the USA, and also in China.
Or is it the quality of the roads that requires the use of Hummers?

Cheers,
Bart

[RSL]

I mentioned it earlier in some other thread, that about 30 years ago I happened to paddle on the Guadalupe river in central Texas which starts as a clear cold stream from the bottom of the Canon Lake dam and then it flows gently between the cattle ranches. After about 15-20 miles below the dam the river gets quite warm and very polluted just from the pasture runoffs that I lost any desire for a swim. As mentioned, all the pollution on that river stretch seemed just from the farming. However, according to a 2012 Environment Texas report, industrial facilities dumped 14.6 million pounds of toxic chemicals into Texas’ waterways, making Texas’ waterways the fourth worst in the nation.

Oh, them nasty Texans.

[LesPalenik]

Les, the problem is Americans don't like driving kiddie cars.

And some of those tiny cars will leave in dust the big 8-cylinder American behemoths.
Fiat Abarth 500 goes to 132mph and Mini Cooper to 160 mph. And you can actually drive them at those speeds on Autobahn. Compare that with 55mph speed limit in NJ.

[RSL]

Are you serious? There have been hosts of suggestions for reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, including wind power, solar energy, no fracking, reduction of deforestation, less consumption of meat, and abandonment of coal. If you want to be taken seriously you shouldn't say such ridiculous things.

Golly, Peter, all those "suggestions." And yet you think the "planet" still is warming. What's the world coming to? Keep up the suggestions.

[RSL]

By my count there were a half dozen Republican members of Congress that have resigned in the past year because of similar issues that the NY AG committed.  They are all equally culpable and you cannot single out just one party for gross misconduct.  You need to be an equal opportunity place the blamer.

Well, the problem, Alan, is that Democrats don't resign. In spite of the shame they just keep plugging along, as in Bill Clinton.

[RSL]

. . .there are a lot of people outside the US who will be impacted (and currently are) by extreme weather.

Extreme weather? Don't you mean extreme climate? Seems to me I remember a short lecture on this thread about the difference. And I'm sure a lot of people will be impacted by extreme climate change if it ever actually occurs.

[pegelli]

Okay, Pieter, since it's an aphorism with which you seem not to be familiar, here's the whole thing: "Figures don't lie, but liars figure."

C'mon Russ, don't play dumb, it's below your dignity. I know my Amarican idiom so there's no need "to teach your grandmother to suck ...." (and Google is your friend in the rare case you wouldn't know what .... stands for, but I'm sure you do )

Now I'm not suggesting you're a liar. I'm sure you accept these charts at face value. After all, to you they "prove" what you want proved.

The problem is not that I accept these charts at face value because I don't. Look for my posts in this thread and you'll see that is an absolute unfounded statement.
The real problem with these charts is that you dismiss them out of hand because they don't align with your opinion, so they can't be true. You keep saying we all know nothing (which I agree with) but on the other hand your opinion on this subject seems to be gospel and just iterating it should be enough proof for everybody to immediately accept it. Maybe that's how the military worked, but over here it doesn't work that way.

But what you and a lot of other people think they prove is that CO2 and other human-generated "pollutants" (pollutants that make things grow, by the way) are causing "global warming." Of course that overlooks the whole of geologic history which is dominated by a succession of global warmings and coolings. The "planet" may be warming (though there's some evidence it's cooling), but there's certainly no "proof" whatever's happening is caused by anything other than the cosmos, perhaps with a minor contribution from humans (who are part of the cosmos).

And even if global warming exists and humans are causing it (two big ifs) there's no indication the warming is going to be a problem for humanity in general. Yes, it's going to be a problem for people who built stuff too close to the east coast of the U.S., but relative to humanity as a whole that's a pretty small (though vocal) group.

As I said, restating your opinion constitutes no proof.

[pegelli]

But the posters on here are having a lot of fun speculating, especially Pieter with his speculative charts.

You're getting old Russ, you're mixing up people here. Happens a lot so no need to really worry about it

[Alan Klein]

And some of those tiny cars will leave in dust the big 8-cylinder American behemoths.
Fiat Abarth 500 goes to 132mph and Mini Cooper to 160 mph. And you can actually drive them at those speeds on Autobahn. Compare that with 55mph speed limit in NJ.

Well, I did 90mph on a Connecticut highway with a speed limit of 65 and got tagged by the friendly state trooper for $300.  Just got back from the southwest touring the national parks.  Speed limits of 75 and 80mph are commonplace in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah unlike here in NJ.

Of course, it's not only the speed.  Americans like big cars like SUV's which suck up the fuel.  Ford and GM may be ending selling sedans in America favoring crossovers, a mix between a full size SUV and regular sedans.  But that could be also due to heavy competition from foreign models. 

[Chairman Bill]

Extreme weather? Don't you mean extreme climate? Seems to me I remember a short lecture on this thread about the difference. And I'm sure a lot of people will be impacted by extreme climate change if it ever actually occurs.

Climate change leading to extreme weather events. Not a difficult concept to grasp. The climate change we're seeing is enough to be reducing glaciation significantly & to be causing very significant reductions in winter sea-ice covering in the Arctic & the break-up of large ice-shelves in the Antarctic. But don't worry folks, 'cos it's not really happening. Just fake news. Or something.

[RSL]

Hi Bill, : https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum

Notice this information is from NASA, the same outfit that's measuring cow burps and farts.

[LesPalenik]

Their conclusion is that the total amount of ice is decreasing.

Studies show that globally, the decreases in Arctic sea ice far exceed the increases in Antarctic sea ice.

We could take it one step further and conclude that the increase in penguin population won't make up for reduced number of polar bears.

[Alan Klein]

Studies show that globally, the decreases in Arctic sea ice far exceed the increases in Antarctic sea ice.

But the amount of snowfall has increased ten percent over the last couple of centuries.  Since Antarctica is a land mass, that snow locks up water from the ocean slowing it's rise.  Sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic are neutral since sea ice floats and doesn't effect sea levels regardless of how little or much there is. 

The point is there's lots of stuff going on.  Unfortunately, the doomsayers only cherry pick the news that supports their view.  We should hear all of it so we can have a true understanding of what's going on.  Because the doomsayers have their thumb on the news, there's a lot of mis-trust from people like me.  They're like the boy who cried "wolf".

[Alan Klein]

Here's article on Antarctic snow fall increase.  https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/world/antarctica-snowfall-increase-wxc/index.html

[Alan Klein]

Here's article on Antarctic snow fall increase.  https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/world/antarctica-snowfall-increase-wxc/index.html

What's interesting about this article is that it reverses scientific studies previously made. Previous studies concluded Antarctic snow leevels have remained constant over the last few centuries.  The new British study concluded that snow levels increased ten percent. 

The point is that just like other science, scientific conclusions don't stay forever, necessarilyy.  We should keep an open mind.  We should also reliaze that many studies weren't done properly or conclusively and past records they used were very sketchy.  A little humbleness about our effect on God's Earth might be in order.  He seems to have be doing a pretty good job on taking care. 

[Farmer]

Hi Bill, : https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum

Notice this information is from NASA, the same outfit that's measuring cow burps and farts.

Great article - here are some key quotes from the page you linked:

"Editor’s note: Antarctica and the Arctic are two very different environments: the former is a continent surrounded by ocean, the latter is ocean enclosed by land. As a result, sea ice behaves very differently in the two regions. While the Antarctic sea ice yearly wintertime maximum extent hit record highs from 2012 to 2014 before returning to average levels in 2015, both the Arctic wintertime maximum and its summer minimum extent have been in a sharp decline for the past decades. Studies show that globally, the decreases in Arctic sea ice far exceed the increases in Antarctic sea ice."

"“The planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming. Sea ice as a whole is decreasing as expected, but just like with global warming, not every location with sea ice will have a downward trend in ice extent,” Parkinson said."

"Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square kilometers) of ice a year; the Antarctic has gained an average of 7,300 square miles (18,900 sq km). "

It's key to note that Antarctica has ice surrounding a continental landmass, so it takes a relatively small amount to increase the extent of the coverage (or to decrease it, of course) as it's only ranging beyond the land and not the entire area.

[Alan Klein]

But none of that means much, Phil.  Sea ice does not contribute to a rise or lowering of sea levels.  It's floating.  When sea water freezes or melts, the sea's level remains the same.  It's melting glaciers on land that will raise sea levels just as increased snow on the Antarctic land mass will lower sea levels.