Is a mini ICE AGE on the way?

[TheCuriousCat]

1. During the mini warming spell in the middle ages (whenever it happened that they could grow grapes in England) no real species died off. It is estimated that during that time global conflicts fell to an all-time low due to the relative abundance of food and the longer growing season.

That heating spell was warmer than it is now and warmer than it is projected to become for quite a while.

My understanding of the mediaeval warm period is it was a localised phenomena. The globe as a whole was actually cooler than now even though Europe was warmer.

1. I would think the increase in arable land as the permafrost melts would give Canada a pretty big economic boost. I’d think you’d be happy, actually.

If Canada was representative of the whole world, I certainly would be! Well, except that I live on an island that had been under the water when the Earth was warmer, and the fact that winters not being quite as cool are destroying huge swaths of forest because pine beetles aren’t dying off like they used to.

But besides that, yes, we’ll do much better than most. Most of the poorest people in the world will suffer more than we’ll gain, though. I might have to move, but at least my country won’t disappear. When those people have to move because their island nations sunk under the waves, it might really ramp up some conflicts.

1. More CO2 in the atmosphere means faster and bigger plant growth.

Yes and no. For some plants out will be miraculous, others don’t thrive in high co2 environments. It’s like sunlight. Some plants need tonnes, others die if they get too much. Also, we are uprooting a lot of plant habitats to put in condos. We are also facing a lot of desertification. Over all, plants and animals are fairly well adapted to the conditions they are in, radically changing those conditions might not be such a hot idea. (Sorry, I should be ashamed.)

1. Given that the areas on the planet with the greatest biodiversity are often those nearest the equator, making the world warmer overall should increase global biodiversity in the long run.

By raising the temperature, you are changing things like humidity, weather patterns, and lots of other conditions. Some species just won’t be able to adapt to the change. Plant life doesn’t migrate all that well. It’s not likely you’ll start finding tropical plants moseying their way up to New Jersey.

If this transition to a warmer climate was going to take 1,000 years, it might well be a good thing, but I don’t think nature is ready for a quick fire change to a different climate.

1. The creatures hanging around the galapogous islands seem to have adapted in record time to even greater temperature ranges than GW ever predicts for the poles. I mean there are penguines living near the tropics because of that. And their habitat suffers from an 11 - 15 degree (c) temperature drop (and later rise) every 4 - 7 years due to the change in ocean currents and yet still they hang on and adapt.

Sorry, I haven’t looked into the flora and fauna of the Galapagos islands in awhile. There will be species that are able to adapt, but unfortunately many won’t. It’s kind of risky to just roll the dice and see what happens.

We are already locked in for more warming if we don’t light so much as another match. We haven’t reached one degree over pre-industrial levels yet. The Paris talks are unlikely to keep warming to 2°. We don’t know exactly how hot is too hot.

What I want to know is why we aren’t just told the pros and cons of GW if it is actually happening? Why don’t we get the facts and sit down and think about what it all means? My problem is that whenever I start hearing some media hound screaming about the ‘devastating effects’ I just remember their track record on horrible predictions. I grew up thinking we were going to run out of tungsten by the year 2000. I was worried that we’d have no more fish. We were all going to be killed by killer bees! I mean, I get very suspicious because the world has become a dumbed-down place.

I guess there is a desire to keep the message simple for people to grasp. It almost never seems to work when people simplify things down, but people always try. Avoid fat, they tell us, but the truth is so much more complicated.

I guess I don’t want you to think I didn’t listen. I did. I am. I neither want to be a denier nor a tool of some agency that wants to control all the world’s resource by pretending it has to be regulated some more. I don’t want to be a radical in either camp. I just want the truth.

Thanks for taking the time.

Peace.

-Trident

I appreciate your attitude, and I’d love to address all of the points you’d like addressed, but I feel sadly incapable. The discussions you want to have are happening in the scientific literature. People are bringing up the pros and cons, but there are so many variables, and there might not be that much time to debate it.

Did that really address any of your points?

 

[TheCuriousCat]

For the record, from now on, I’m only going to engage with people who are being friendly. Like Trident was.

 

[Theo520]

My understanding of the mediaeval warm period is it was a localised phenomena. The globe as a whole was actually cooler than now even though Europe was warmer.

There is actually a wealth of published research showing the mediaeval warm period occurred around the globe.

Medieval Warm Period Project

Just pick your desired region and you can see the peer reviewed research conducted. This is a collection of independent research that shows a warming occurred in that region/location. Added together, they show the warming was not localized to Europe.

Sorry if you feel I’m not ‘being nice’ but I asked a very basic evidentiary question about the models, and you’ve deflected.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If Canada was representative of the whole world, I certainly would be! Well, except that I live on an island that had been under the water when the Earth was warmer, and the fact that winters not being quite as cool are destroying huge swaths of forest because pine beetles aren’t dying off like they used to.

One has to be really careful in attributing forest conditions to particular causes. I do a limited amount of forestry, and where I live there is a major outbreak of certain oak pests and diseases. They only affect oaks, not walnut or hickory or persimmon or pines of any kind. And it’s mostly red oaks. White oaks are relatively unaffected.

When you study it, you find that most red oak growths are on poor soil, too close together, have a lot of floor buildup and are old. In addition, we have a lot of ice storms because we’re located squarely in tornado alley where two systems collide, so red oaks, being relatively weak as oaks go, tend to get broken limbs from heavy ice accumulation.

So, why are we having the oak borers, for example. Well, it’s “all of the above”. Had people thinned them and had modest fires on the forest floor, it probably wouldn’t be happening.

Pine beetles are similar. They mainly affect trees on poor soil that are too close together, too old, diseased, and where lack of fires has caused forest floor buildup. It’s not just the beetles.

Neither thing is due to MMGW. Both are due to poor management or total lack thereof.

Interestingly, in my part of the country, Indians burned the whole countryside annually in order to stimulate grass for the large herbivores on which they depended. That incidentally kept trees thinned, floor buildup down, pest destruction higher, and the removal of very old and diseased trees. Slowly this part of the country is returning to that pre-columbian state, but it’s doing it the hard way, through diseases, pests and outright mechanical clearing.

 

[Trident_H]

I’m going to do this in multiple posts so I don’t lose it all if I make a mistake this time.

Thanks so much for taking the extra time. I know you didn’t have to so I appreciate it! (I read everything twice just to make you feel better! )

Actually, in modern times the underdog has a horrible track record. Usually, what gets overthrown is conventional wisdom, not scientific theories. There are a couple of notable exceptions, but mostly the scientific majority gets it right. The media on the other hand…

OK, that’s something we can agree on. I’ll accept that you are right here. (1 point)

Like I said, in Canada, the ruling party would really, really love AGW to go away as an issue. They have closed research stations, cut funding to research, and give through severe contortions to make it seem like there are no problems. Being a climate scientist in Canada is a tough gig because every time you say that co2 emissions are threatening the environment, you are fueling opposition to the expansion of the oil sands and pipelines which are the centrepiece of the governments fiscal plans.

If the scientists were coming out in favour of the view they want, it would melt away the opposition to drilling more. How would that hurt their funding?

Well I don’t know much about those kind of politics, but I have to think that Canada has more than just Oil Industries running the country. I mean don’t you have a lot of forests and glacial parks and stuff? Wouldn’t a ruling party just say, well Oil Companies, we’re going to need you to do these things because we need to look good for the cameras and we need all that voting support–oh, and yes, our scientists say so? I mean I don’t know. Big Money can certainly buy you friends, but I would think the government would just say they could get even bigger money by making a carbon tax happen–especially if a lot of the people want one already. Do a lot of the people want one there?

The other thing is that I have heard that the oil sands (I thought it was tar sands?) make a lot of CO2, but that the way oil is taken out of places in parts of South America (and some other places) is way worse for the environment because of the mess that is left behind. I’m not sure, but it seems like oil being extracted in a first world country would always be better regulated than a third world country so it would seem like the ruling party would be better off just regulating their CO2 a bit better if it is true to cause GW so they can show the contrast in the operations and corner the market–or something.

I also read that Saudi Arabia spent a lot of money making the Oil/Tar sands look bad because it was competing with their product. So I guess politics must play some part of a role in both sides.

I still don’t really understand this exactly, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. (1 point).

Yeah, I don’t think any governments think they are going to win any battles over coal. Raises problems no matter what the climate does.

I guess the two do kind of cancel each other out so we’ll drop this one.

It certainly does beat a rapid ice age. I’ll grant that.

I guess there would be a lot of skiing

It’s not all bad. Like you say, there are some positives, and you are right, maybe they should be discussed more. It’s just the bads are really bad, and this planet doesn’t have brakes.

(cont.)

Ok, well that is a good point too.

 

[Trident_H]

My understanding of the mediaeval warm period is it was a localised phenomena. The globe as a whole was actually cooler than now even though Europe was warmer.

I thought it was the reason the Vikings could get their ships so far through the arctic sea in North America because the ice was melted all along their route?

If Canada was representative of the whole world, I certainly would be! Well, except that I live on an island that had been under the water when the Earth was warmer, and the fact that winters not being quite as cool are destroying huge swaths of forest because pine beetles aren’t dying off like they used to.

Yeah, I saw pictures of all the dead trees. I hadn’t thought of GW being part of the problem, but if cold temperatures were the only way this pest was controlled in the past I guess I’d have to think about that some more. I had always thought that the problem was the forest industry consistently planted Pine trees because they grew the fastest and could handle the cold weather. In the past the forests were less homogeneous and so the beetles could not spread as fast?

But besides that, yes, we’ll do much better than most. Most of the poorest people in the world will suffer more than we’ll gain, though. I might have to move, but at least my country won’t disappear.

Oh, don’t worry too much about sinking into the ocean because if I understand right, the higher the oceans rise, the lower the water levels will be in the North and Southern regions because the water will tend to bulge along the equator due to the rotation of the Earth and the natureal water-elasticity property of water. So you are safe! Canada is looking better all the time lol!

When those people have to move because their island nations sunk under the waves, it might really ramp up some conflicts.

Yeah, it always seems the poor countries get the shaft no matter what happens.

Yes and no. For some plants out will be miraculous, others don’t thrive in high co2 environments. It’s like sunlight. Some plants need tonnes, others die if they get too much. Also, we are uprooting a lot of plant habitats to put in condos. We are also facing a lot of desertification. Over all, plants and animals are fairly well adapted to the conditions they are in, radically changing those conditions might not be such a hot idea. (Sorry, I should be ashamed.)

Haha, good one! OK, I didn’t realize some plants breathe less than others. How do they manage now? I mean are they found mainly at high elevations or?

Yeah, the desertification of places is a problem. Sometimes I wonder why we couldn’t all just live underground and leave the surface alone?

By raising the temperature, you are changing things like humidity, weather patterns, and lots of other conditions. Some species just won’t be able to adapt to the change. Plant life doesn’t migrate all that well. It’s not likely you’ll start finding tropical plants moseying their way up to New Jersey.

If this transition to a warmer climate was going to take 1,000 years, it might well be a good thing, but I don’t think nature is ready for a quick fire change to a different climate.

Yeah, I suppose a lot of them would have trouble taking up root (see I did it too ) and moving north. But I guess like you say it depends on timeframe. That is what makes the Galapagos Islands so interesting is that as volcanic islands they are relatively recent so the only trees that managed to take root there are either palms (whose seeds float) or a strange type of dandelion that grows as tall as a tree (because its seeds were light enough to float that far). I kid you not. It is amazing!
So I guess if GW happens we might see all kinds of new plant hybrids cropping up while old ones die out. All the botanists would go bananas (or should I say, ‘grow’ bananas? Hey, you started it ).

Sorry, I haven’t looked into the flora and fauna of the Galapagos islands in awhile. There will be species that are able to adapt, but unfortunately many won’t. It’s kind of risky to just roll the dice and see what happens.

Oh man you really should! It is so fascinating. I’ve been reading a lot about it. They have species there that just don’t make any sense, like finches that drink blood and iguanas that actually swim in the ocean and eat seaweed. Man if a guy wasn’t an environmentalist before studying that area you sure become one afterwards!

We are already locked in for more warming if we don’t light so much as another match. We haven’t reached one degree over pre-industrial levels yet. The Paris talks are unlikely to keep warming to 2°. We don’t know exactly how hot is too hot.

I guess we’ll just have to keep checking the thermometer and crossing our fingers, but man a little more warmth in the winter wouldn’t hurt my feelings!

 

[Trident_H]

I guess there is a desire to keep the message simple for people to grasp. It almost never seems to work when people simplify things down, but people always try. Avoid fat, they tell us, but the truth is so much more complicated.

Yeah, I guess that’s true. The attention span of the average person is pretty short. I say that and then a voice sort of whispers in my head asking me if I really think I am that much above average myself!

I appreciate your attitude, and I’d love to address all of the points you’d like addressed, but I feel sadly incapable. The discussions you want to have are happening in the scientific literature. People are bringing up the pros and cons, but there are so many variables, and there might not be that much time to debate it.

Did that really address any of your points?

Oh man yes. Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate you breaking it down like that (twice!). I know I still have a lot of questions, but you’ve been more than fair with your time so don’t feel like you have to answer them. I’m not expecting you to be my free personal tutor, lol! But I mean I do like talking with you. You are very patient and sincere and I find you really fair.

And I mean at the end of the day a lot of us are really still just guessing or using our best reasoning skills to work out what seems to make sense based on what articles we’ve been exposed to. We have a number of years yet to go before one side has to sheepishly apologize . But there are sure a lot of different ideas out there!

Thanks again man, you really make a good impression!

Peace.

-Trident

 

[Smfm]

Yes, Global warming was the cause of the last one…

 

[Crossbones]

Or read the above non sequitur and reactionary comment; good thing he doesn’t know, eh?

It’s not really a reactionary comment to point out how many Catholics wish to ignore the teaching of the Pope because it doesn’t agree with their politics or view of Jesus. I’d be a bit more embarrassed about being a future priest slamming an Archbishop’s statement on Supreme Court rulings like in the Catholic news forum.

My priest made an interesting point today about how the followers of Christ had their expectations of the Messiah that weren’t in touch with the real reasons that Christ came to earth. It seems today that a great deal of Republican Catholics are so convinced that they know what Jesus teaches that they can ignore the leadership of the Church whenever they say something that doesn’t agree with their world view.

 

[TheCuriousCat]

One has to be really careful in attributing forest conditions to particular causes. I do a limited amount of forestry, and where I live there is a major outbreak of certain oak pests and diseases. They only affect oaks, not walnut or hickory or persimmon or pines of any kind. And it’s mostly red oaks. White oaks are relatively unaffected.

When you study it, you find that most red oak growths are on poor soil, too close together, have a lot of floor buildup and are old. In addition, we have a lot of ice storms because we’re located squarely in tornado alley where two systems collide, so red oaks, being relatively weak as oaks go, tend to get broken limbs from heavy ice accumulation.

So, why are we having the oak borers, for example. Well, it’s “all of the above”. Had people thinned them and had modest fires on the forest floor, it probably wouldn’t be happening.

Pine beetles are similar. They mainly affect trees on poor soil that are too close together, too old, diseased, and where lack of fires has caused forest floor buildup. It’s not just the beetles.

Neither thing is due to MMGW. Both are due to poor management or total lack thereof.

Interestingly, in my part of the country, Indians burned the whole countryside annually in order to stimulate grass for the large herbivores on which they depended. That incidentally kept trees thinned, floor buildup down, pest destruction higher, and the removal of very old and diseased trees. Slowly this part of the country is returning to that pre-columbian state, but it’s doing it the hard way, through diseases, pests and outright mechanical clearing.

Yes, those are very solid points. It was an oversimplification to blame the pine beetle outbreaks on AGW without mentioning the other reasons.

The pine beetles range isn’t limited by its food source, but by the climate. Their food source extends north beyond their range and at higher elevations. Over the past 30 years, they have been moving farther north and reaching higher elevations. In other words, they are moving into regions that had previously been too cold for them.

The forestry practices in these regions are the same as in their traditional territory.

 

[estesbob]

It’s not really a reactionary comment to point out how many Catholics wish to ignore the teaching of the Pope because it doesn’t agree with their politics or view of Jesus. I’d be a bit more embarrassed about being a future priest slamming an Archbishop’s statement on Supreme Court rulings like in the Catholic news forum.

My priest made an interesting point today about how the followers of Christ had their expectations of the Messiah that weren’t in touch with the real reasons that Christ came to earth. It seems today that a great deal of Republican Catholics are so convinced that they know what Jesus teaches that they can ignore the leadership of the Church whenever they say something that doesn’t agree with their world view.

I guess we learn from the Democrats. So tell me which is worse- supporting a candidate who has doubts about AGW or supporting a candidate who supports unrestricted taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, homosexual marriage and forcing business to provide contraception and abortificants to their employees?

 

[Crossbones]

I guess we learn from the Democrats. So tell me which is worse- supporting a candidate who has doubts about AGW or supporting a candidate who supports unrestricted taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, homosexual marriage and forcing business to provide contraception and abortificants to their employees?

Depends on who were talking about. After all, President GW Bush started an unjust war, tortured detainees, tried to use his political capital to ‘fix’ Social Security and did not do jack diddly-squat about abortion. In that case, I think that Republican Presidential candidates that support positions similar to President Bush are likely to be trainwrecks.

You know, after taking a little sabbatical, I’m not sure that I care about homosexual marriage. I would hate for my heterosexual children to end up married to a gay person who was pressured into being straight and ruining my kid’s life in the process. Maybe it’s a good thing that your daughter can pursue her path through life without having to pretend to be something she is not.

 

[lynnvinc]

Depends on who were talking about. After all, President GW Bush started an unjust war, tortured detainees, tried to use his political capital to ‘fix’ Social Security and did not do jack diddly-squat about abortion. In that case, I think that Republican Presidential candidates that support positions similar to President Bush are likely to be trainwrecks.

You know, after taking a little sabbatical, I’m not sure that I care about homosexual marriage. I would hate for my heterosexual children to end up married to a gay person who was pressured into being straight and ruining my kid’s life in the process. Maybe it’s a good thing that your daughter can pursue her path through life without having to pretend to be something she is not.

I actually knew a woman who was married to a homosexual in the early 1960s. She has thought everything was fine, then one day he up and left her saying he was gay, leaving her devastated. In those days people were not supposed to get a divorce – it was considered a shame and terrible failure.

 

[sps49]

It’s not really a reactionary comment to point out how many Catholics wish to ignore the teaching of the Pope because it doesn’t agree with their politics or view of Jesus. I’d be a bit more embarrassed about being a future priest slamming an Archbishop’s statement on Supreme Court rulings like in the Catholic news forum.

My priest made an interesting point today about how the followers of Christ had their expectations of the Messiah that weren’t in touch with the real reasons that Christ came to earth. It seems today that a great deal of Republican Catholics are so convinced that they know what Jesus teaches that they can ignore the leadership of the Church whenever they say something that doesn’t agree with their world view.

Excellent strategy; double down with another reactionary post.

 

[Crossbones]

Excellent strategy; double down with another reactionary post.

Ah, it’s interesting to see the different methods used around here to silence different views around here. Thank you for your contribution.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes, those are very solid points. It was an oversimplification to blame the pine beetle outbreaks on AGW without mentioning the other reasons.

The pine beetles range isn’t limited by its food source, but by the climate. Their food source extends north beyond their range and at higher elevations. Over the past 30 years, they have been moving farther north and reaching higher elevations. In other words, they are moving into regions that had previously been too cold for them.

The forestry practices in these regions are the same as in their traditional territory.

One still needs to be cautious about such things. The oak borer “seemed” to move northward into Missouri from Arkansas, but the only difference was that the oaks were in worse condition in Arkansas because they were older on average, and on worse soil. As they matured out and became vulernable in Missouri, the borers slowly invaded. Interestingly, the worst outbreaks are in a national forest where they basically let nature take its course in all sorts of ways. Ultimately, I’m sure, nature will, indeed, take its course, greatly thin out the timber, reduce the red oak numbers (not really native to the region but faster growing and more proliferative than native white oaks) kill off the over-mature trees, and return to a more natural balance.

But it will take a long time and it will look terrible while it’s happening. It’s remarkable how nature eventually cures human mismanagement, but it’s slow.

 

[estesbob]

I actually knew a woman who was married to a homosexual in the early 1960s. She has thought everything was fine, then one day he up and left her saying he was gay, leaving her devastated. In those days people were not supposed to get a divorce – it was considered a shame and terrible failure.

So?

 

[TheCuriousCat]

One still needs to be cautious about such things. The oak borer “seemed” to move northward into Missouri from Arkansas, but the only difference was that the oaks were in worse condition in Arkansas because they were older on average, and on worse soil. As they matured out and became vulernable in Missouri, the borers slowly invaded. Interestingly, the worst outbreaks are in a national forest where they basically let nature take its course in all sorts of ways. Ultimately, I’m sure, nature will, indeed, take its course, greatly thin out the timber, reduce the red oak numbers (not really native to the region but faster growing and more proliferative than native white oaks) kill off the over-mature trees, and return to a more natural balance.

But it will take a long time and it will look terrible while it’s happening. It’s remarkable how nature eventually cures human mismanagement, but it’s slow.

The thousands of researchers who have written dozens of papers on the subject have been very careful.

At epidemic levels (and it was the biggest epidemic of all time) the beetles begin attacking healthy trees. So it wasn’t an issue of them moving to where the trees were sicker. They moved into areas that had at one time been too cold for them, but now aren’t. They crossed the Rockies, which had always been a barrier for them due to the extreme altitude, now it isn’t. They were exacerbated by the fact that there were milder winters and warmer summers.

It’s warmer. They are worse because it’s warmer. They have looked into all the other possibilities, and its worse than it would have been because it’s warmer. Don’t believe it if you doing want to, but that’s what’s happening.

 

[sps49]

Ah, it’s interesting to see the different methods used around here to silence different views around here. Thank you for your contribution.

Going for three for three I see. Please show an example of how someone “silenced you” in this thread, or how I did for that matter. Critical examination of reactionary statements is not a method of silencing. Claiming to be a victim due to a critical review of your own words is a method of silencing, or changing the subject. It is a weak method, relying on how successful the perception of victim-hood is transferred to the debate as a debate strategy, but little or no attention to the actual subject.

 

[estesbob]

The thousands of researchers who have written dozens of papers on the subject have been very careful.

At epidemic levels (and it was the biggest epidemic of all time) the beetles begin attacking healthy trees. So it wasn’t an issue of them moving to where the trees were sicker. They moved into areas that had at one time been too cold for them, but now aren’t. They crossed the Rockies, which had always been a barrier for them due to the extreme altitude, now it isn’t. They were exacerbated by the fact that there were milder winters and warmer summers.

It’s warmer. They are worse because it’s warmer. They have looked into all the other possibilities, and its worse than it would have been because it’s warmer. Don’t believe it if you doing want to, but that’s what’s happening.

Actually its not warmer. The Co2 increased-the temperature did not. Now they and you are entitled to your opinions-just don’t ask me to fund them.

Funny thing about the assertion the Pine Beetles crossed the Rockies because of global warming. I live in Estes Park-the temperatures in the Rockies have nor risen either before , during or after the infestation. In fact if anything we have had a recent spate of colder winters. The idea that Global warming caused this is utter nonsense-almost as specious as the assertion that Global warming killed 70,000 people during the last hot summer in Europe. But alarmism sells and when there is funding to be had the more alarmed the more you get