How media over-represents 15 times climatosceptiks fake science

[jeremyrh]

Three million years ago, the CO2 content was the same as today, yet ocean levels were 10m higher. Go figure.

What conclusion do you draw from that (supposing it were true, for the sake of discussion)?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/warming-temperatures-could-transform-antarctica-plant-filled-land-green-180971880/

[jeremyrh]

Hay fever doesn't exist. It's a plot by lefties/Communists/environmentalists/Muslims/AOC/persons of colour/women/scientists/the government/etc etc etc(*).

*Delete according to taste.

Sorry, I forgot the obvious culprits!

[Alan Klein]

Congratulations to your win, Alan! 18 to 1 is a great outcome. That means that if you bet $1000, you would have made almost $18,000.
Long shots on the race track are like to be contrarian in stock market. Most analysts keep recommending what is trending at the moment and most investors follow their advice. Half the time they are wrong. Do you have any such stock investment tips?

Buy low; sell high.

[Alan Klein]

Climate Change is a complex process, atmospheric warming is a very well understood result of a combination of factors.

The main driver/accelerator of atmospheric warming is CO2 (and Methane is playing a smaller role but it's weight as a contributor is increasing, due to Global warming).

Watervapor is another gas that contributes to a warming atmosphere, but its volume is limited to what the atmosphere can hold before it rains out again. However, since CO2 traps the heat, the atmosphere warms and expands, and the atmosphere can hold more water-vapor before it rains out. So, CO2 also causes additional indirect warming due to allowing more water-vapor to build up.

All this can be found in the scientific literature, and more (like reflectance of sunlight by clouds and snow/ice surfaces, and absorption by ice-free ocean surfaces and landmass).

So we're back to square one, one needs to read information coming from reliable sources (peer-reviewed scientific literature), and not rely on the blogosphere.

Cheers,
Bart

P.S. Here's a magazine article (not a scientific peer-reviewed report) that pretty much explains in simpleton words what science tells us:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/if-carbon-dioxide-makes-u/

So more raining wets formally dry areas and provides more rain elsewhere for greater food production, more potable water for people and animals, etc.  Sure, some of it may cause floods, but more water is better generally than less just as warmer climate has been better for earth's inhabitants than cooler weather. 

[Alan Klein]

One biggest dangers to the survival of the Apollo 13 astronauts was CO2 poisoning. They went to heroic efforts to prevent it.

One biggest dangers to the survival of the Apollo 13 astronauts was CO2 poisoning. They went to heroic efforts to prevent it.

That's just silly.  The astronauts were in an enclosed capsule on their way to the moon where CO2 could go up to poisonous levels.  Comparing that to earth and man's survival on it with CO2 percentages we are faced with, just weakens your position. 

[jeremyrh]

So more raining wets formally dry areas and provides more rain elsewhere for greater food production, more potable water for people and animals, etc.  Sure, some of it may cause floods, but more water is better generally than less just as warmer climate has been better for earth's inhabitants than cooler weather.

Keep telling yourself that, Alan, keep whistling.

[Alan Klein]

Keep telling yourself that, Alan, keep whistling.

You never refute the points I say or give differing ideas.  You just attack me personally.  You're a smart guy.  Certainly, you can come up with something more than I'm whistling.

[BernardLanguillier]

So more raining wets formally dry areas and provides more rain elsewhere for greater food production, more potable water for people and animals, etc.  Sure, some of it may cause floods, but more water is better generally than less just as warmer climate has been better for earth's inhabitants than cooler weather.

Only complex simulations will tell us what areas of the world may benefit from the global warming. Some probably will, but overall the simulations indicate a lot more negative effects.

So in the end it’s probably about the empathy you do or do not have for the millions who will not be able to relocate to Belgium as it becomes a tropical paradise.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Alan Klein]

Only complex simulations will tell us what areas of the world may benefit from the global warming. Some probably will, but overall the simulations indicate a lot more negative effects.

So in the end it’s probably about the empathy you do or do not have for the millions who will not be able to relocate to Belgium as it becomes a tropical paradise.

Cheers,
Bernard

I don't buy it.  The argument (extra) rain won't fall in the right places is just an phony explanation the "experts" want to use to make it seem like it will be bad.  As you said, it's too complex to decide exactly what's going to happen in each area of the world.  But the truth is there will be more rain and snow stored in mountains for Spring runoffs generally because there will be more evaporation from warmer temperature. More places will stand a better chance to benefit from the extra rain.  This is another benefit the global warmists don't want to talk about.

Certainly your Belgium should benefit by a couple of extra degrees in the winter unless you own a ski slope.

[BernardLanguillier]

I don't buy it.  The argument (extra) rain won't fall in the right places is just an phony explanation the "experts" want to use to make it seem like it will be bad.  As you said, it's too complex to decide exactly what's going to happen in each area of the world.  But the truth is there will be more rain and snow stored in mountains for Spring runoffs generally because there will be more evaporation from warmer temperature. More places will stand a better chance to benefit from the extra rain.  This is another benefit the global warmists don't want to talk about.

Certainly your Belgium should benefit by a couple of extra degrees in the winter unless you own a ski slope.

It may rain less in some places, more in others that will become unlivable triggering movements of populations unheard of and a huge global instability.

And poor countries will be affected a lot more than rich ones.

As an educated person who just had the luck to be born at the right place and with some means to act I feel that I have to do something.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Alan Klein]

What about those poor countries and people who count on cheap fossil fuels to warm their humble abodes? Should they give up warmth for their children and themselves during cold winters? SHould they study and read by candlelight?    China intends to build 850 coal fired electric producing plants worldwide.  Would you ask the Chinese to give up their plans?  Would you ask those poor countries to forgo electricity so their people can live modern, more safer lives?  Did you contribute a couple of thousand dollars or guilders so a family there could install solar and stay off the grid, any grid?

Would you take scarce government resources that could be used for cancer research and spend them on propping up on stilts homes of the more well to do who live by the shore so they don't get flooded out during the next hurricane? 

How many degree have your turned down your heating thermostat in the winter?  How many cars have you sold?

Just how would you allocate those resources?  Just who would you sacrifice to feel good? 

Just how much would you be willing to do?

[Ray]

Climate Change is a complex process, atmospheric warming is a very well understood result of a combination of factors.

The main driver/accelerator of atmospheric warming is CO2 (and Methane is playing a smaller role but it's weight as a contributor is increasing, due to Global warming).

Watervapor is another gas that contributes to a warming atmosphere, but its volume is limited to what the atmosphere can hold before it rains out again. However, since CO2 traps the heat, the atmosphere warms and expands, and the atmosphere can hold more water-vapor before it rains out. So, CO2 also causes additional indirect warming due to allowing more water-vapor to build up.

All this can be found in the scientific literature, and more (like reflectance of sunlight by clouds and snow/ice surfaces, and absorption by ice-free ocean surfaces and landmass).

Bart,
You forgot to mention the great uncertainty about the role of increased water vapour and clouds in a changing climate. It's not well understood at all. You're not biased by any chance, are you?   

The following organization, which I think you'd agree is fairly reliable, is at least attempting to address this issue, but much uncertainty still remains.

International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project  https://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html

Here are a few relevant quotes from the linked article:

"If the climate should change, then clouds would also change, altering all of the effects listed above. What is important is the sum of all these separate effects, the net radiative cooling or warming effect of all clouds on Earth. For example, if Earth's climate should warm due to the greenhouse effect, the weather patterns and the associated clouds would change; but it is not known whether the resulting cloud changes would diminish the warming (a negative feedback) or enhance the warming (a positive feedback)."

"The ways that clouds respond to changes in the climate are so complex that it is hard to determine their net effect on the energy and water balances and to determine how much climate might change."

"The global climate is such a complex system that no one knows how even a small increase in temperature will alter other aspects of climate or how such alterations will influence the rate of warming. Moreover, changes in any of these climatic features may also affect the distribution and properties of clouds, but the understanding of clouds is so rudimentary that no one knows whether climate feedbacks involving clouds will dampen or amplify a warming trend."

As regards the heat-trapping effect of CO2, one needs to get this into perspective. On average, every group of 2,500 molecules in the atmosphere contains only one molecule of CO2. The analogy of covering oneself with a blanket, which is often used to describe the heat-trapping effect of CO2, represents a huge exaggeration. A more precise analogy would be covering oneself with a very fine netting. If the threads of the netting represented the CO2, they would be so fine you would need a powerful magnifying glass to see them. How warm do you think such a net would keep you? 

[Peter McLennan]

By that logic, humanity would be extinct long time ago.

It's not logic.  It's fact. Read up on Apollo 13 troubles.

[Peter McLennan]

Well, there is a Congressional document by Karla Marx that calls for exactly that. Now, the repeated question to you et al is: "what do you mean by "adjust"? I have offered my (and Karla Marx') version of the "adjustment"... what is yours?

Show me a doc that says she wants us to do all those things, please.  Especially the "suicide" part.

I've cut WAY down on eating beef, even though I love a good steak.
I seldom fly.  I grow more than half of what I eat.  I avoid nearly all single-use plastics.  I never shoot 10 bit. Eight is enough. 

[Alan Klein]

Show me a doc that says she wants us to do all those things, please.  Especially the "suicide" part.

I've cut WAY down on eating beef, even though I love a good steak.
I seldom fly.  I grow more than half of what I eat.  I avoid nearly all single-use plastics. I never shoot 10 bit. Eight is enough. 

Oh no.  I'll have to give up film. 

[BernardLanguillier]

What about those poor countries and people who count on cheap fossil fuels to warm their humble abodes? Should they give up warmth for their children and themselves during cold winters? SHould they study and read by candlelight?    China intends to build 850 coal fired electric producing plants worldwide.  Would you ask the Chinese to give up their plans?  Would you ask those poor countries to forgo electricity so their people can live modern, more safer lives?  Did you contribute a couple of thousand dollars or guilders so a family there could install solar and stay off the grid, any grid?

Would you take scarce government resources that could be used for cancer research and spend them on propping up on stilts homes of the more well to do who live by the shore so they don't get flooded out during the next hurricane? 

How many degree have your turned down your heating thermostat in the winter?  How many cars have you sold?

Just how would you allocate those resources?  Just who would you sacrifice to feel good? 

Just how much would you be willing to do?

Those are good and valid questions and today’s schedule won’t allow me to write a detailed answer, but I don’t think that not striving to reduce CO2 emissions is the best answer we can come up with.

As far as I am concerned, I have never sold a car in my life. At 47 I own my first car, bought second hand, now 6 and pretty much brand new looking. I wash it twice a year and intend to keep it as long as the local regulations enable me to/until the day when electric vehicles become a usable and environmentally sound solution where I reside.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Alan Klein]

Those are good and valid questions and today’s schedule won’t allow me to write a detailed answer, but I don’t think that not striving to reduce CO2 emissions is the best answer we can come up with.

As far as I am concerned, I have never sold a car in my life. At 47 I own my first car, bought second hand, now 6 and pretty much brand new looking. I wash it twice a year and intend to keep it as long as the local regulations enable me to/until the day when electric vehicles become a usable and environmentally sound solution where I reside.

Cheers,
Bernard

I'm sure your heart is in the right place.  But sometimes, we miss the forest through the trees.  Cheap available fossil fuels has made modern safe living for more people in the world than most inventions.  Yet, most of the world still struggles with everyday needs we take for granted, just part of everyday life.  What those people wouldn't give for regular heat during the winter or a constant source of electricity to operate TV's, radios, power equipment, hospitals, and have lighting to be able to see and do things at night and keep them safer.  Should Paris insist that China not build those 850 coal-fueled electricity plants?  (Of course the Chinese won't agree).  How many people will those plants give electricity to people for the first time?  There are still around a billion people who don't have electricity.  Chinese are buying 24 million cars, more than any other country.  SHould we force them to stop buying?  Or should they be allowed to keep at least one for 6 years as you have?  PS I just sold a 15 year old car that had 70,000 miles on it and still have a 7 year car with 90,000 miles.  Well my wife drives a new 2019, but I'm not going to argue with her.

[Peter McLennan]

By that logic, humanity would be extinct long time ago.

Hardly.  I think if you do the research, the last time CO2 levels were at the current concentration, there was no humanity.

[Peter McLennan]

is just an phony explanation the "experts" want to use to make it seem like it will be bad.

Why are "the experts" doing that?  Why do they want it to "be bad"?

 

As you said, it's too complex to decide exactly what's going to happen in each area of the world.  But the truth is there will be more rain and snow stored in mountains for Spring runoffs generally because there will be more evaporation from warmer temperature. More places will stand a better chance to benefit from the extra rain.  This is another benefit the global warmists don't want to talk about.

You can't have it both ways, Alan. You can't say that it's too complex to predict, and then do exactly that.

[Alan Klein]

Hardly.  I think if you do the research, the last time CO2 levels were at the current concentration, there was no humanity.

So the higher levels created man?