Why should I care about climate change?

Thank you for your concern, but I'm doing just fine.

What is the alternative? Cut off fossil fuels immediately? Our use of cheap energy has lead to an incredible economy where even the very poor enjoy a standard of living many times better than the rest of the world. There is better access to food, shelter, and health care than ever in the history of the world. Should this all be thrown away because there is an unknown chance that something bad could happen? Let's assume for a minute the war described by the previous poster was directly attributable to human-influenced climate change. Which is worse? 3rd-world health and living conditions throughout the civilized world or conflict in the Middle East? I'd venture a guess that the death toll of the former far exceeds that of the latter.

Explain to me why I should care. Species have come and gone since the beginning. I don't lose sleep over the dinosaurs, and I'm probably not going to over polar bears. I care more about providing a good life for my children.

You've chosen a narrow timeframe. I'm speaking on a long-term level. Suppose it takes 50 years to perfect the technology that would support something like a solar energy infrastructure. What is the projected impact of that 50 years of fossil fuel use 1000 years from now? 5000 years from now? I would expect the planet to self-regulate back to "normal," with the definition of normal open for debate, and the timiline uncertain. I have serious doubts that another 50 years of increasing CO2 levels will have long-term consequences, which leads me to wonder why I should care at all. Hence this post.

There is a lot of talk about the "climate change models." What models? Whose models? What papers discuss them? This is the info I'm looking for.

Limnologist wrote:

jewbacca wrote:

I'm very familiar with this and the chemistry behind it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but technically this has no impact on climate change, right? I consider it a separate and more immediate issue.

Not a climate scientist, but a limnologist here.

Ocean acidification IS climate change. It also impacts climate change in the form of a feedback loop. Decreased plankton health results in decreased photosynthesis which results is less carbon being removed from the atmosphere which results in increased ocean acidification which results in decreased plankton health. Many of us learned in elementary school that rain forests were the lungs of the Earth, but this isn't true. The oceans are the lungs of the Earth. 70% of all photosynthesis on Earth occurs in the oceans.

Thank you for the correction.

jewbacca wrote:

There is a lot of talk about the "climate change models." What models? Whose models? What papers discuss them? This is the info I'm looking for.

The IPCC reports. Citizen Runner already linked to them. There are others, but that's a really good start.

What reduction in world human population required to have an effect on climate change

There is a number where we go back significantly in technology and production capacity. Not enough qualified people to run the electric grid...

Is it 50% of world population? Less than that? More?

I guess that the 75 y.o. And up don't matter. None really contribute significantly. They typically are net users of resources.

People under the age of 18 also don't really matter. They don't really contribute (unless they are in a third world country and contribute in labor force).

I wonder if cutting 50% of world population over a 2 year period would have a significant effect to global warming.

No Way wrote:

jewbacca wrote:

There is a lot of talk about the "climate change models." What models? Whose models? What papers discuss them? This is the info I'm looking for.

The IPCC reports. Citizen Runner already linked to them. There are others, but that's a really good start.

Not in this thread he didn't. There is a link to an IPCC impact assessment. That's not the models.

It's hard to really track down the results from specific models. As I understand it, there are 16 models and within these models there are multiple variables. As you make more and more models and carry them out further into the future, the end of the chart begins to look like a frayed rope. Still, we can look at the average of all returns to get a "band" of likely outcomes.

Here are projections from 44 IPCC computer models. The thicker blue and red lines show actual observed temperatures. As you can see, the models... all 44 in this time frame... failed. They predicted a higher rise than observed through 2012. (Although I think the recent blip in temperature has both of these observed temperature line to be above the bottom 2 or 3 models.)

What about benefits to climate change? Say it really is happening and continues. Are there any advantages. For example areas that will be inhabitable that aren't currently, increased farming or is every aspect to climate change negative?

Here is a chart showing a composite of multiple tree ring data studies that measure temperature changes over the past 2,000 years. From this chart, several things are obvious.

- Over short spans of 100 years in the past, global temperature has changed lot, both up and down, prior to the rise of the industrial age (and rising CO2 levels)

- Spikes in temperature in 200AD, 800AD, 1200AD, and 1700AD are quite similar in speed and rise to what has happened since CO2 began to rise.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-background-articles/2000-years-of-global-temperatures/

seikosha wrote:

What about benefits to climate change? Say it really is happening and continues. Are there any advantages. For example areas that will be inhabitable that aren't currently, increased farming or is every aspect to climate change negative?

If climate scientists were truly objective, we would see many studies to ferret out the benefits of rising temperature and recommendations of steps to take to optimize those benefits. Instead, such studies are extremely rare. To me, this is further evidence of the bias in climate science.

While there haven't been many studies, here are two. The first is from NASA.

Rising CO2 is increasing global vegetation... equivalent to twice the area of the continental US in the past 35 years. The bodes well for crops and humanity, since malnutrition and hunger are two of the two problems in the world today.

The second is that milder winters reduce cold weather related deaths far more than rising temperatures cause hot weather deaths. I can't remember exactly, but it's maybe 5-7 to 1 ratio. By the way, a lot of those hot weather deaths are not in Africa or the Middle East. Instead, they occur in Europe where there is no air conditioning. Surely some of those deaths could be prevented by installing air conditioning. (Sorry, I don't have a handy link for this benefit of climate change, but I could probably find it.)

fisky wrote:

since malnutrition and hunger are two of the most pressing problems in the world today

fisky wrote:

Here is a chart showing a composite of multiple tree ring data studies that measure temperature changes over the past 2,000 years. From this chart, several things are obvious.

- Over short spans of 100 years in the past, global temperature has changed lot, both up and down, prior to the rise of the industrial age (and rising CO2 levels)

- Spikes in temperature in 200AD, 800AD, 1200AD, and 1700AD are quite similar in speed and rise to what has happened since CO2 began to rise.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-background-articles/2000-years-of-global-temperatures/

Ah yes, just another fine example of how incredible LetsRun posters are. Not only does the average LRCer run a sub-14 5k, make well over $250,000 a year, and have a supermodel wife but there are also folks on here who are so brilliant, objective, educated and downright wonderful that they can easily do better than thousands of scientists in understanding human's impact on the climate.

You sir are a paragon of brilliance. Although I too can run well under 14, make $500,000 and have a super duper model wife still it is a priviege - nay THE privilege of my life to share this forum with someone as brilliant as you.

jewbacca wrote:

What is the projected impact of that 50 years of fossil fuel use 1000 years from now? 5000 years from now? I would expect the planet to self-regulate back to "normal," with the definition of normal open for debate, and the timiline uncertain. I have serious doubts that another 50 years of increasing CO2 levels will have long-term consequences, which leads me to wonder why I should care at all. Hence this post.

Here's a review paper that cites most of the relevant literature on the topic of CO2 residence times and which suggests that your intuition on this topic is probably way off base:

Dfgvgfv fgbr wrote:

I wonder if cutting 50% of world population over a 2 year period would have a significant effect to global warming.

The richest 2% would make a much bigger difference.

Here's a better idea` wrote:

Dfgvgfv fgbr wrote:

I wonder if cutting 50% of world population over a 2 year period would have a significant effect to global warming.

The richest 2% would make a much bigger difference.

Your fantasy is just proof that climate activists are secretly just hateful, violent, luddite, anti-rich cranks.

By 2015, we'll have mile long lines for gasoline, daily temps in the triple digits, and all costal regions will be evacuated! Van Jones says we need to act now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXWeWhnrQXs

sooo....... wrote:

Here's a better idea` wrote:

The richest 2% would make a much bigger difference.

Your fantasy is just proof that climate activists are secretly just hateful, violent, luddite, anti-rich cranks.

Your extrapolation from one dumb poster to millions of folks who care about the likely future state of the planet is just proof that you are an ignoramus.

Joint letter from 31 U.S. scientific societies sent to Congress yesterday: http://www.eurekalert.org/images/2016climateletter6-28-16.pdf

Questions and Such wrote:

used to be cool wrote:

. . .

To the other guy, I placed a link to geoengineeringwatch.org at the bottom of my last post.

OK, thanks. Didn't click on it the first time.

Taking a look at it now I see that it is a classic nut-job conspiracy site.

Well done!

Funny.

I was pointed in the direction of that site by a tenured prof, specializing in climatology and glaciology. He also knows Dr. David Keith, who is the oft-cited expert on geo-engineering. Even the mainstream Discovery Channel has done a story on spraying the skies and they concluded that there's evidence to support that it's happening.

Just because it's a conspiracy theory, doesn't mean that it isn't true. You've been conditioned into believing that ALL conspiracy theories are false just like a good sheep.

Dfgvgfv fgbr wrote:

I wonder if cutting 50% of world population over a 2 year period would have a significant effect to global warming.

Here's a better idea` wrote:

The richest 2% would make a much bigger difference.

sooo....... wrote:

Your fantasy is just proof that climate activists are secretly just hateful, violent, luddite, anti-rich cranks.

My plan is better than yours, as it saves the 50% of the world's population that you would get rid of.