Global Warming = A JOKE!!

outsidethebox wrote:

I personally haven't looked at the evidence.

Obviously.

only me wrote:

[quote]Blowing.Rock Master wrote:

Historically man (and nearly all other forms of life) has done better when the climate was warm instead of cold.[quote]

On 2/9/2010 2:33AM I asked you to back this up - any chance that you might, or am I to assume that you've just pulled that statement out of your arse?

Here's what I pulled out of my arse:

A graph of global temps for the last 10,000 years drawn from a variety of studies:

Note the prolonged warm period from about 8,000 to 4,000 years ago, that corresponds with the rise of human civilizations.

Then there was a prolonged cooling period until about 2,200 years ago. Near the end of this period many eastern Mediterranean civilizations collapsed.

The Roman Warm period followed lasting until about 1,400 years ago. The Roman Empire rose and was at it's height during this period.

The Dark Ages followed as temps fell again. The population of Europe plummeted from about 40-50 million to 30 million and the Roman Empire collapsed.

The Medieval Warm period began 1,200 years ago and lasted until about 700 years ago. European populations increased and expanded into the wilderness.

The Little Ice Age began and lasted into the early 1800's. The rapid cooling that started this period caused massive famine in Europe and saw the return of bubonic plague. Some regions of Europe lost 50%-70% of their population.

The current warming started roughly 250 to 300 years ago (before the industrial revolution began), ending the Little Ice Age. People have done pretty well over that time period.

With regards to plants and animals, ask yourself this: Do living things prosper more in an Ice Age (when temps were only about 2C colder) or during warm periods like when the dinosaurs lived (when temps were nearly 10C warmer)?

outside, I can tell you're struggling. Just give it up already. You know nothing about climate science and you admit to not having looked at the evidence. We went over this, and now you just need to stop being a troll. If you have no evidence, then don't speak. It's that simple. I'm not saying you have to prove it (should I repeat that?) but if you can't back up what you are saying and you haven't looked at the evidence, then YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY. You can't argue if you can't back up what you are saying.

Objective Viewer that was requ wrote:

This is really enjoyable. This is complete and utter obliteration. Nice job outsidethebox. Very nice indeed.

Are you speaking for him or against him? Because I am obviously winning.

Idiot police wrote:

ra ra ra rawr wrote:

You are an idiot. Yes you do BELIEVE. You can't KNOW for certain if evolution is true or if global warming is real. The world is round? I'll give you that one, but you just can't know for certain, so stop claiming all this stuff to be out of the realm of question.

Way to argue semantics like a concrete thinking knuckle-dragger.

We can't KNOW ANYTHING for certain. When a certain threshold of evidence is reached, we stop saying BELIEVE and start saying KNOW.

For examle, I KNOW you are an insecure 14 year old douche bag.

What if you are wrong? Doesn't that call into question your ability to know these things? You are wrong. I am 20 and a college student.

shut up wrote:

Objective Viewer that was requ wrote:

This is really enjoyable. This is complete and utter obliteration. Nice job outsidethebox. Very nice indeed.

Are you speaking for him or against him? Because I am obviously winning.

Excuse me, I mean Blowing.Rock is winning, and I am nailing home the point.

You act like just because some guy.. somewhere.. on a messageboard.. doesn't have a "proof" (like its as simple as pointing to the candlestick in the conservatory).. then the entire theory of global warming is refuted. Please.

shut up wrote:

What if you are wrong? Doesn't that call into question your ability to know these things? You are wrong. I am 20 and a college student.

How do you KNOW you are 20 years old? How do you KNOW you are a college student?

Shockingly, you failed to grasp my point.

outsidethebox wrote:

You act like just because some guy.. somewhere.. on a messageboard.. doesn't have a "proof" (like its as simple as pointing to the candlestick in the conservatory).. then the entire theory of global warming is refuted. Please.

For the last f**king time: I am not saying the theory is bunk because you can't provide anything, but if you can't back up what you are saying, SHUT UP. That is all.

Idiot police wrote:

shut up wrote:

What if you are wrong? Doesn't that call into question your ability to know these things? You are wrong. I am 20 and a college student.

How do you KNOW you are 20 years old? How do you KNOW you are a college student?

Shockingly, you failed to grasp my point.

The problem is, you are equating what humans think about the distant past with real-life situations, as if they had just as much evidence for each. This is never the case. The past cannot be observed, so it cannot be as solid as you are making it out to be.

Shut Up:

You do realize that that for any scientific inquiry or anything proven by induction, you have to accept certain standards. If we didn't, we really can't accept anything. The only thing we could accept would be a priori knowledge (like there are 3 sides to a triangle). While everyone concedes that global warming has not reached the standard we're willing to call it "true," you unfairly hold these scientists up to these ridiculous standards of truth for global warming (which you conveniently don't for anything else in science).

Outsidethebox does make a good point. While we global warming has not attained the status being called true, there certainly seems to be a lot more evidence for global warming than against it. That's all he's saying.

Blowing Rock Master:

Keep telling yourself you're smarter than the leading scientists and thought of arguments no one else can come up with.

I'm not holding it up to ridiculous standards. I'm just telling him he needs to back up his claims or else he can't talk about it because he knows nothing, period. I'm just saying give a little scientific support for what he's saying, I'm not telling him to objectively prove that, beyond a doubt, it is true. I am telling him to back up what he's saying, that's all.

Apparently you can't read well. I pointed out that nothing I said was an original idea. I'm just repeating what thousands of the leading scientists have said. Scientists who rely on evidence instead of computer models to reach their conclusions.

Shut Up:

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

Of scientists with an expertise in climatology and who have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change, 97.4% said human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.

Of all scientists total (i.e., not just climatologists, but other related fields like geochemistry, geophysics, oceanography), 82% said man is a significant contributing factor.

This is a survey of 3,146 Earth scientists (out of 10,257 given the survey), 90% of which have Ph.D.s. Even if you account for the fact that 70% did not respond, it seems unlikely the 30% that did respond are that far from being a representative sample. The 10,257 chosen scientists was taken from a database of nearly all Earth scientist faculty out there.

BRM:

It seems doubtful there even are "thousands" of scientists that question global warming. It looks like it is in the hundreds (at most 2000ish). And it looks like you seriously underestimated how large the majority is (and don't try that "just because there's a majority, it doesn't mean it's true" thing again.. we get it. You have to admit it means something though).

It is interesting that an "atheist biochemist" would choose to ignore data more than 10,000 years old - what particularly reason-challenged organisation does that remind me of? Surely any "atheist biochemist" would know that 10,000 years is an evolutionary blink of the eye?

Have a look at this, which is the whole history of animal existence that we are able to see, instead of a little, tiny, insignificant 10,000 years:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png

and then explain the coincidence between the emergence of primates at around 85 million years ago, and the prolonged cooling period, which also began around 85 million years ago?

While the argument about whether mankind is a significant cause of climate change (between, on the one hand, BRM and Shut-Up and, on the other hand, Outsidethebox et al) is interesting, I don't think it is primary.

I suspect that both hands agree that climate change is caused both by (x) mankind and (y) other factors: the disagreement being over the relative contributions of (x) and (y) and perhaps the meaning of the word "significant".

The question which I would like answered is: "what are the consequences of climate change for mankind?" (For the vast majority of humans, the consequences could be much much more relevant than the causes.)

Without answering that question, there is almost no point deciding what, if anything to do about it. (A) It might be the case (I simply don't know) that the consequences are, largely, positive, in which case we should sit back and enjoy the change and (in London for example) look forward to Mediterranean cafe culture beginning where it never once was. (B) Alternatively, the consequences might be largely negative. In this scenario mankind might need to act (and of course, this is the case whether the cause of climate change is (x) or (y)).

Assuming (B) (not something I am prepared to assume myself, just for the sake of argument), a cost/benefit analysis should be undertaken concerning any actions. It might be the case that the cost of taking action outweighs the benefits: in which case action should not be taken. I'm using "action" very widely here: action could be, for example, saying that all future emissions of CO2 must stop and we should return to a Medieval existence, or it could mean that we just change our living spaces to cope with the new climate, or it could mean that we decide to move populations from one part of the globe to another.

(Parenthetically, I might add, when considering the cost of an action, one should always consider the opportunity cost. For example, if mankind focuses huge amounts of resources on tackling climate change by reducing C02 emmissions and thereby is poorer has fewer resources focused on reducing the amount of African women who die in childbirth then that might be a huge oppotunity cost.)

A lot of these questions are political rather than scienctific. And therefore while I respect the opinions and advice from scientists (or even the majority of scientists!) I don't consider it in anyway conclusive as to action that should be taken. I do wish there more debate on these things.

I also realise that I've just re-worded an earlier post of mine in this thread without adding much new - apologies.

only me wrote:

It is interesting that an "atheist biochemist" would choose to ignore data more than 10,000 years old - what particularly reason-challenged organisation does that remind me of? Surely any "atheist biochemist" would know that 10,000 years is an evolutionary blink of the eye?

Have a look at this, which is the whole history of animal existence that we are able to see, instead of a little, tiny, insignificant 10,000 years:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png

and then explain the coincidence between the emergence of primates at around 85 million years ago, and the prolonged cooling period, which also began around 85 million years ago?

WTF? At first I thought you might be saying that primates 85m years ago were a cause of global cooling! Now I think you're saying that global cooling 85m years ago was a cause of the emergence of primates. (Isn't it funny how causes and consequences can sometimes be confused!)

I suppose you think this might be evidence to refute BRM's earlier hypothesis that humans were better suited to a warmer environment? I don't think this is evidence of that or relevant to the discussion at hand, I think it's just an interesting talking point.

It isn't unreasonable to ask why mammalian life forms have prospered on a cooling Earth, since it is contrary to his assertions.

As a skeptic, the global warming debate itself has become really tiresome and boring for me. Both sides can be so stupid and hypocritical. However, observing how the mainstream media covers the subject still fascinates me. The propaganda they spew is so patronizing, it amazes me they can sleep at night. CNN and NY Times are the worst culprits. This is why FoxNews (which sucks in its own ways) is kicking their asses so badly.