Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize

[MaxWeiss]

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If you look at the last two reports. C02 levels have increased dramatically (at a greater rate then anyone would have projected) yet the IPCC's own projections for temperature have decreased dramatically.

There is are only two possible methods of explaining this.

1) The IPCC uses questionable science so the previous temperature projections were wrong. Which leads us to question why we should listen to them now.

2) That there is no link between C02 and GW

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This is just flat out wrong. It could also mean that they got updated data or a new model or any number of things. The thing to point out is that in both methods the prediction is still rising temperatures on roughly the same scale.

[chezlaw]

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If you look at the last two reports. C02 levels have increased dramatically (at a greater rate then anyone would have projected) yet the IPCC's own projections for temperature have decreased dramatically.

There is are only two possible methods of explaining this.

1) The IPCC uses questionable science so the previous temperature projections were wrong. Which leads us to question why we should listen to them now.

2) That there is no link between C02 and GW

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just flat out wrong. It could also mean that they got updated data or a new model or any number of things. The thing to point out is that in both methods the prediction is still rising temperatures on roughly the same scale.

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Yes, There's a huge difference between showing a strong correlation between CO2 and GW and making accurate predictions of temperature rises.

chez

[AlexM]

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2) That there is no link between C02 and GW

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Untrue. According to the historical data, global warming unquestionably causes more CO2... which pretty much disproves the CO2 causes global warming theory.

[AlexM]

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I find it fascinating that some people can make claims against the scientific evidence and believe them as fact, or refute all the evidence and intelligent, considered opinion just because it 'isn't prozen', then in another thread chastise someone else for the same route of logic on another topic.

I think we all know what I mean.

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Nope.

[Jamougha]

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2) That there is no link between C02 and GW

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Untrue. According to the historical data, global warming unquestionably causes more CO2... which pretty much disproves the CO2 causes global warming theory.

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Fire creates heat; therefore, the 'heat creates fire' theory is invalidated.

Oh snap.

[chezlaw]

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2) That there is no link between C02 and GW

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Untrue. According to the historical data, global warming unquestionably causes more CO2... which pretty much disproves the CO2 causes global warming theory.

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or it could mean that increases in CO2 will be a total catastrophie.

positive feedback sucks.

[vhawk01]

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2) That there is no link between C02 and GW

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Untrue. According to the historical data, global warming unquestionably causes more CO2... which pretty much disproves the CO2 causes global warming theory.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fire creates heat; therefore, the 'heat creates fire' theory is invalidated.

Oh snap.

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This is a fantastic analogy.

[Silent A]

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The IPCC. In 2001 they projected 2100 temperatures would be 2.4-10.8C higher. In 2006 the projections are now 1.1-6.4C higher. In the meantime we have had China and India grow to the point China is going to pass the USA as the largest source of CO2 within the next 10 years.

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This ultra-simplistic "argument" of yours completely betrays your lack of understanding of the basic principles behind the Earth Sciences.

However, in case someone here might find your above statement compelling ...

The IPCC reports are based on the results from several climate models under several plausible scenarios. Each scenario is indicative of a certain set of political decisions made over the next 100 years. The decisions include things like:

- population growth rates
- emphasis on either economic growth or pollution control
- rate of introduction of alternative energy sources
- global technological homogenization (or lack thereof)

None of the scenarios are a prediction. Rather it is expected that the scenarios together form a reasonable representation of the choices humanity can make over the next 100 years. I'm pretty sure that these scenarios were identical for the 2001 and 2007 reports, so any recent increases in CO2 is irrelevant for these studies.

One of the scenarios involves relatively rapid population growth, an emphasis on economic growth over pollution control, continued intense fossil fuel use, and global homogenization (i.e. developing countries become more like western industrialized countries). This is a pretty extreme scenario and is meant to address what might happen in a worst-case scenario.

The changes in the temperatures expected under this scenario represents improvements to the climate models over the last 6 years (and they have certainly improved significantly). They certainly don't suggest that there is no link between CO2 and global temperatures since the low emission scenarios still consistently produce less warming than the high emission scenarios. The results you mention only suggest that the worst-case might not be as bad as previously thought.

Also, if this was more about propaganda than science, you'd think they tweak the results to make the worst-case scenario look even worse. The fact that the 2007 IPCC results are less dramatic than the 2001 results doesn't fit well with a propaganda model. The important change is that the uncertainties are decreasing, both in terms of the reality of anthropomorphic climate change and our confidence in the models.

Here is a link to the IPCC FAQ about the 2007 report. It's probably as sensible and accurate an information source as you're going to find:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/...Print_FAQs.pdf

[smk67]

I find argueing for and against GW to be missing a major detail. That detail is, what do we do IF GW is occurring due to man? Al Gore replied to that question "go around and tell everyone about it and use the new type of lightbulb".

The real answer to the question is probably more along the lines of "continue to explore alternative energy sources, increase fuel economy standards, replace current technologies with newer ones that use less energy, etc." In other words, do everything that is already being done anyways, just maybe do it faster! Plenty of the huge oil companies have begun to look beyond oil (BP claims to stand for Beyond Petroleum). Most car manufacturers are selling cars with improved gas mileage (even GM has their '7 cars over 30mpg' promotion), and replacements of lightbulbs is well known.

So let's get back to the discussion of GW. Why does it matter if its real or not? Will the solution come through talking about the problem and lightbulbs? Or are the problems of the possibility of GW already being addressed by private industry (and government funding of research)? What should the government do differently if GW is indeed happening?

[madnak]

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but I can perform a Sklanskyism with respect to my original argument i.e. even if it was provable that a massive calamity now was an advantage to humanity from the year 3,000 onwards its obviously true that we would still want to avert the calamity now. Hence it cannot be because of these future generations that we want to avert climate change.

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We care more about the current generations than future generations, but that doesn't mean we don't care about future generations all. I do think we "should" allow the calamity in this case - though I'm not sure how willing I would be to do so if it really happened.