Man Made Global Warming Theory = Human Excrement

[Zeno]

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Global Warming is a religion.

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There are some environmental groups that are fairly zealous and that use global warming as padding to push their political agenda(s). But beyond that your statement is pure rubbish. Global Warming is not a religion. What is a religion is calling global warming a religion as a means of dismissing the whole.

-Zeno

[wacki]

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wacki :

What do you make of the argument we are warming up because we're coming out of an ice age? Also what are your thoughts on methane gas from cows and other sources?

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The agriculture/food aspect of climate change is the perfect argument why ardent conservationists are out of touch with reality. As long as we continue to use 6 barrels of oil to grow a cow we will have problems. Change those 6 barrels to biodiesel and things look a lot better. As long as we continue to use fossil fuels to power our cars or create fertilizer any behavioral modifications on the individual scale will only delay the inevitable.

If you want to understand the ice ages this is a good book that reads like a novel:
http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Ages-Solvi.../dp/0674440757

Realclimate.org and Grist Mill's Coby Beck have several posts about why the "coming out of the ice age" argument doesn't hold water.

Here is an easy to read but incomplete post from newscientist:
http://environment.newscientist.com/...change/dn11645

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GoodCallYouWin,

That imbrie and imbrie book is really good. But if you want a summary in a few lines this is the best I can do:

The earths orbit is constantly changing. The shape of the orbit changes from an ellipse to a circle and the earth also wobbles around it's axis like a spinning top wobbles when it's running out of steam. This is the "trigger" of the ice ages. This basic astronomical theory was developed in 1842 by Joseph Adhemar and later expanded on by James Croll. Croll was particularly important as he was able to show that the orbits just started a process and then growing ice sheets multiplied the cooling effect by reflecting light into space. In 1904 came Milutin Milankovitch who spent the next 30 years developing mathematical models to predict at what stages of the earths orbit there would be ice ages. After he finished his work geologists uncovered proof from rocks, sediment, and the oceans that showed his predictions were correct.

There is a lot more to the story but that book gave me a whole new level of respect for geologists.

[wacki]

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Have you read this book and if so what do you think?

A Climate Modelling Primer

You've succeeded in getting me interested in climate modeling. I want to read more than conclusions. I want to learn more about how they're constructed.

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I read papers and blogs direct. So I dunno. I can e-mail a few people and ask them though.

A good place to start learning is realclimate.org. If you know the math read the post titled: "Learning from a simple model". That will introduce you to some really basic math. The "A Saturated Gassy Argument" is also a fun read.

[JDalla]

I am not a scientist (at all), but I know a few, and they are intellectually driven creatures, not hacks with and agenda... of course there certainly are some scientists with agendas (religious, partisan...) but certainly there aren't enough "pro-warming problem" scientists to start a unfounded 'global warming conspiracy'

Card spoke of "careers being made..." etc. on global warming, but obviously there is more money to be made by not doing anything about global warming (exxon, et al.)

[Utah]

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A good place to start learning is realclimate.org

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Someone has to be incredibly gullible to believe the crap they are selling at realclimate.org. I find it shocking that you pretend you know so much about global warming and yet you reference realclimate.org as a source. True knowledge of global warming and believing the lies, distortions, and fairly tales of realclimate.org are simply incompatible.

[adios]

I actually have a fair amount of professional experience in implementing real-time models of aircraft systems so I'm not a total newbie to the concepts pertinent to modeling.

I will check out that site so thanks. I'm wondering how good that book is in providing an insight.

[adios]

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I am not a scientist (at all), but I know a few, and they are intellectually driven creatures, not hacks with and agenda... of course there certainly are some scientists with agendas (religious, partisan...) but certainly there aren't enough "pro-warming problem" scientists to start a unfounded 'global warming conspiracy'

Card spoke of "careers being made..." etc. on global warming, but obviously there is more money to be made by not doing anything about global warming (exxon, et al.)

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Again I don't think there's that much debate on whether or not there is global warming over the last century. It's on what the causes are and what can be done to remedy the situation (if anything).

Wacki has been kind enough to post links to alot of scientific information. I think people are much more skeptical of politicians involved in manipulating the issue for political gain FWIW.

We've got unproven climate models that are predicting dire consequences if green house gas emissions continue unabated. These models may be highly accurate but we don't know for sure. I also note that the technological capability to produce decent climate models hasn't been available for that long. Point being that climate science has advanced and continues to advance a great deal due to the increase in technological capability. At least that's my take. In a 100 years climate science will probably be uncomprehensively more advanced than it is today. Again just my take. Trouble is that there are models that are telling us that there will be irreparable harm done in much less than 100 years.

[adios]

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A good place to start learning is realclimate.org

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Someone has to be incredibly gullible to believe the crap they are selling at realclimate.org. I find it shocking that you pretend you know so much about global warming and yet you reference realclimate.org as a source. True knowledge of global warming and believing the lies, distortions, and fairly tales of realclimate.org are simply incompatible.

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I really don't know a thing about the veracity of the info at realclimate.org. It would be appreciated if you could cite a few of the biggest lies, distortions etc.

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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Climate models can reconstruct the past 130 years with a pretty high accuracy.

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Gee.....I guess I'm a great scientist too.
My personally constructed climate model was EXACTLY correct in determining the past 200 years of weather. This is 70 years BETTER than the models that Wacki alluded too. Taking my advanced mathematical algorythyms, I applied these models to other notable areas and achieve similar success.

E.g.
*I was able to determine the past 20 Super Bowl winners with 100% accuracy.
*I was able to determine the past 20 WSOP winners with 100% accuracy.
*I was able to determine the past 20 World Series winners with 100% accuracy.

I'm considered using my expertise to get a PhD in climatolgy and get multi-million dollar grants in climate research but I have too much integrity to do so.....

[ConstantineX]

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I am not a scientist (at all), but I know a few, and they are intellectually driven creatures, not hacks with and agenda... of course there certainly are some scientists with agendas (religious, partisan...) but certainly there aren't enough "pro-warming problem" scientists to start a unfounded 'global warming conspiracy'

Card spoke of "careers being made..." etc. on global warming, but obviously there is more money to be made by not doing anything about global warming (exxon, et al.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Again I don't think there's that much debate on whether or not there is global warming over the last century. It's on what the causes are and what can be done to remedy the situation (if anything).

Wacki has been kind enough to post links to alot of scientific information. I think people are much more skeptical of politicians involved in manipulating the issue for political gain FWIW.

We've got unproven climate models that are predicting dire consequences if green house gas emissions continue unabated. These models may be highly accurate but we don't know for sure. I also note that the technological capability to produce decent climate models hasn't been available for that long. Point being that climate science has advanced and continues to advance a great deal due to the increase in technological capability. At least that's my take. In a 100 years climate science will probably be uncomprehensively more advanced than it is today. Again just my take. Trouble is that there are models that are telling us that there will be irreparable harm done in much less than 100 years.

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This entire issue raises interesting question about bias. Why is it that conservatives are much more skeptical on this issue than many other scientific propositions? Are you so skeptical as to question many other commonly held "truths" in your life? There are valid questions to be asked, but almost no one holds the other side to valid scrutiny unless it conflicts with their ideological positions.

That said, here's my view. I think it's almost indisputable that the Earth is warming, and I think that there currently is a preponderance of evidence suggesting that it may be caused by humans (anthropogenic global warming, AGW). I am skeptical for many of the same reasons that adios is. Many of the changes required to "stop" warming could greatly slow down global growth; and the targets for the elimination of carbon dioxide seem to incorporate unrealistic models of population growth and especially technological progress. Wacki, you offhandedly stated that earlier that Kyoto might slow the doubling of economic growth by "about 2 years". This is a much bigger deal to me than it is to you; honestly, haven't the benefits of fast economic growth proven themselves to everyone yet? Why should a US climate scientist decide that in his interest to save the world, he can slow down the appreciation of anyone's standard of living? If you are a Singulatarian, this issue is especially important - the sooner there are radical life-changing technologies, the better. Moreover, I'm not so sure we should be concerned about "future generations", to be politically incorrect. Wouldn't someone living in a city in the early 20th century be concerned about the state of horse manure for "future generations"?