Pope Francis urges UN conference to ‘act without delay’ on climate change

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kingston1 said:
Sure, why not? But the OP said that climate deniers are equivalent to someone who denies Divine Truth; the world is coming to an end and deniers will be responsible for the death of millions. So, question is what should we do and if the world is coming to an end shouldn’t that change be radical?

There seems to be a chasm between those who are climate change prophets and the rest of us; we obviously don’t see what they see. It doesn’t mean they’re wrong but at the same time we want to know what they’re personally doing to live a carbon neutral life. If they’re not living a carbon neutral life do they REALLY BELIEVE? Also people’s ignorance is not deliberate as ignorance means we don’t know what we don’t know. So, who’s going to tell us? If it’s Leo DiCaprio or Al Gore or Gov Moonbeam Brown I automatically don’t believe them as soon as they open their mouth. As a matter of fact I am more inclined to believe the opposite it true. Where are the prophets of climate change who are trustworthy?

Of course, the prophets of doom may be living a life like St. John in the desert but instead we see Al Gore or Leo DiCaprio. Their giant mansions, giant electricity bills, giant planes, two Prius’ and carbon footprints of small countries don’t give them much credibility. All the while, your average climate denier (aka murderer of millions) joe six pack who pays taxes through the sweat of his brow is too busy to learn about this issue. At the same time he is using less energy, has no say over public policy, works 40+ hours a week, spends another 10-20 hours at kid’s activities but he is in fact responsible for the death of millions because he is a denier. *That dog don’t hunt. *

Finally, if global warming is rising faster in the past 10+ years than it would normally rise (or lower) for 1000 years and if the issue is compounded because CO2 and other gases remain trapped for a hundred years then only radical change can mitigate this most serious of issues.
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I do not purport to be a “climate scientist” (about which more later) but I do know that where I live there is no apparent change in climate for these many decades I have lived. And I live in a “transition zone” where a change would be very, very apparent in flora and fauna.

And that reflects the experience of just about everyone. Unscientific as it might be, one would think if climate was changing, people would experience it. But they don’t.

Now, if you research it a bit, you’ll find that almost no universities offer a degree in “climate science”. There are many that offer degrees in meteorology. There are those that offer degrees in atmospheric physics. But almost none offer a degree in “climate science”, and those that do usually combine it with some other degree like meteorology.

If “climate science” was as inerrant as some claim it to be, one would think universities would be all over themselves to offer advanced degrees in it. But they don’t, probably because it is not a true science.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Now, if you research it a bit, you’ll find that almost no universities offer a degree in “climate science”. There are many that offer degrees in meteorology. There are those that offer degrees in atmospheric physics. But almost none offer a degree in “climate science”, and those that do usually combine it with some other degree like meteorology.

If “climate science” was as inerrant as some claim it to be, one would think universities would be all over themselves to offer advanced degrees in it. But they don’t, probably because it is not a true science.
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It’s almost like ‘climate science’ is an umbrella term for the dozens of scientific disciplines and hundreds if not thousands of areas of study devoted to determining past, assessing current, and modeling future climate change.
 
lmachine said:
It’s almost like ‘climate science’ is an umbrella term for the dozens of scientific disciplines and hundreds if not thousands of areas of study devoted to determining past, assessing current, and modeling future climate change.
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I’m not saying the various people who write articles know nothing. Perhaps one is a physicist (though few are that). Perhaps one is a biologist who has come to his conclusions based on tree rings. Perhaps another is a hydrologist who has come to his conclusions based on ocean chemistry or wave action.

But as for there being “climate scientists”, I have yet to see an article writer who has an advanced degree in “climate science”. To those who would like to post one or more, I’ll say now that I probably won’t read it. I have read so many pro and con articles on manmade global warming, that I have come to the point that I really don’t believe much of anything any of them say.

But my doubts are most influenced by the fact that I see no evidence in my environment of it. I could explain why I would see it if it was happening, but that’s another story and I have told it before on CAF anyway.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I do not purport to be a “climate scientist” (about which more later) but I do know that where I live there is no apparent change in climate for these many decades I have lived. And I live in a “transition zone” where a change would be very, very apparent in flora and fauna.

And that reflects the experience of just about everyone. Unscientific as it might be, one would think if climate was changing, people would experience it. But they don’t.

Now, if you research it a bit, you’ll find that almost no universities offer a degree in “climate science”. There are many that offer degrees in meteorology. There are those that offer degrees in atmospheric physics. But almost none offer a degree in “climate science”, and those that do usually combine it with some other degree like meteorology.

If “climate science” was as inerrant as some claim it to be, one would think universities would be all over themselves to offer advanced degrees in it. But they don’t, probably because it is not a true science.
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Yes, it should be the only thing we talk about if the “end is near”. In fact based on the “obviousness of the truth” universities should only teach climate change (if this is what will kill millions of people because of our denial to the truth.) Who needs business or literature if the end is near?

My post was meant to polarize those who are saying “the end is near”. If it is near then only radical life style changes can “fix” this problem because it is the more “serious of problems.” But we don’t see any radical changes in the prophets of doom. Owning a prius doesn’t offset one’s mansion. In fact, China has only agreed to reduce carbon emissions in that they will PEAK by 2030 according to the Paris climate change discussion.

But I think in your response you may also be responding to my earlier question about what you meant by “experiencing” the problem which I appreciate the answer. Makes sense.

And I want to address another thing that seems to have set this whole thing off. Pope Francis. With all due respect our concern is for the salvation of souls not the salvation of the planet. According to Francis, protection of the environment is social justice and while we can all agree that pollution, destruction, carbon emissions, etc are bad; that these behaviors are callous and unfair towards our fellow human beings; I would like to see our Pope not involved in this but instead deal only with the fallout or results of global warming. We, the church, don’t fight wars but we do provide protection and medical care to the least of us in these times.

I like St. Francis and his love of nature and I get a bit teary eyed when Bambi’s mom is killed, I love brother sun, but I don’t like the Pope addressing the UN with respect to climate change. Climate change is almost a religion of its own and our Pope is our Pope, let them get their own Pope. And if Pope Francis wants to be the Pope of climate change then he is taking us in the wrong direction. I don’t want my Pope to be Tim Kaine… 🤷
 
Ridgerunner said:
I’m not saying the various people who write articles know nothing. Perhaps one is a physicist (though few are that).
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There are many physicists studying the effects of anthropogenic carbon emissions.
But my doubts are most influenced by the fact that I see no evidence in my environment of it. I could explain why I would see it if it was happening, but that’s another story and I have told it before on CAF anyway.
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There’s a whole lot happening in your environment you see no evidence of. That doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
 
kingston1 said:
Yes, it should be the only thing we talk about if the “end is near”. In fact based on the “obviousness of the truth” universities should only teach climate change (if this is what will kill millions of people because of our denial to the truth.) Who needs business or literature if the end is near?

My post was meant to polarize those who are saying “the end is near”. If it is near then only radical life style changes can “fix” this problem because it is the more “serious of problems.” But we don’t see any radical changes in the prophets of doom. Owning a prius doesn’t offset one’s mansion. In fact, China has only agreed to reduce carbon emissions in that they will PEAK by 2030 according to the Paris climate change discussion.

But I think in your response you may also be responding to my earlier question about what you meant by “experiencing” the problem which I appreciate the answer. Makes sense.

And I want to address another thing that seems to have set this whole thing off. Pope Francis. With all due respect our concern is for the salvation of souls not the salvation of the planet. According to Francis, protection of the environment is social justice and while we can all agree that pollution, destruction, carbon emissions, etc are bad; that these behaviors are callous and unfair towards our fellow human beings; I would like to see our Pope not involved in this but instead deal only with the fallout or results of global warming. We, the church, don’t fight wars but we do provide protection and medical care to the least of us in these times.

I like St. Francis and his love of nature and I get a bit teary eyed when Bambi’s mom is killed, I love brother sun, but I don’t like the Pope addressing the UN with respect to climate change. Climate change is almost a religion of its own and our Pope is our Pope, let them get their own Pope. And if Pope Francis wants to be the Pope of climate change then he is taking us in the wrong direction. I don’t want my Pope to be Tim Kaine… 🤷
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It is true that the Pope is not the authority on the scientific truths of climate change, or indeed any scientific truths, and that the faithful are not obliged to share his exact opinion on the extent of the problem or on the need for remedies. His moral guidance is more of a call to look closely at these issues with an open mind, and consider the possible consequences as something for which we would bear responsibility. Even if the Pope is completely wrong about what he thinks are the facts of climate change, his moral guidance to look closely at the issue is valid guidance.

I also do not share the “sky is falling” view of the extent of the problem, nor am I convinced that any specific remedy is needed or even helpful, especially things like carbon credits. What I am convinced of is that substantial change has already happened and it will continue to accelerate for the foreseeable future.

As for the argument that if climate change were happening then Ridgerunner ought to be experiencing it, I can see how it has sensory appeal. But there are many phenomena in physics that people do not experience immediately or directly. For example, low level radiation is not felt at all - until it causes cancer or cell damage. But we do have scientific instruments that can detect radiation immediately. Not very many people possess these instruments, so they would be unable to experience the fact. Climate change is also measurable with sophisticated scientific tools. Not everyone possess these tools, so they may not say they experience climate change.

Another factor is the overlay of random variation - not just over time but over geography. Changes in the average temperature of the earth may not be represented in parallel changes at every place on earth. In fact the average can be going up while some of the individual locations are actually experiencing cooling. Perhaps the climate in Ridgerunner’s area of the world has not changed a bit, as he says. There are other places in the world where it has changed a lot. Only by doing a systematic investigation can we be sure what has happening. Putting one’s backyard observations, or even one’s state-wide observations, up against such systematic results as if they had equal scientific value is not very scientific.
 
lmachine said:
There are many physicists studying the effects of anthropogenic carbon emissions.

There’s a whole lot happening in your environment you see no evidence of. That doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
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I don’t miss much, because I am out in it all the time, am in a climate transition zone that is only about 50 miles wide, and I depend on particularities of climate for part of what I do.
We have cattle companies from Australia and New Zealand who will only buy land within this narrow zone because of its characteristics.

It has not changed since I was a child.
 
Since Ridgerunner says he doesn’t see climate change in Missouri, I took at look at what the University of Missouri College of Agriculture Food and Natural Resources says about that. Here is the first paragraph:
*Unusually mild weather impacted Missouri during October with preliminary data indicating a statewide average temperature of 62.1°F, slightly more than 5 degrees above normal and the warmest October in more than 4 decades (1971), Figure 1. It was the 8th warmest October on record, and the 9th month with above average temperatures for 2016, Figure 2. The extended 2016 warmth resulted in the 4th warmest Jan-Oct period for Missouri since 1895, Figure 3.
*
Here is how 2016 is shaping up in Missouri:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Of course this doesn’t prove global warming, since it is just one state in one country. But I think it shows that even in Missouri, things are heating up, and if people aren’t aware of it yet, they will be.
 
Current sea level rise is after all not exaggerated, in fact the opposite case is more plausible. Observational data and changing conditions in such places as Greenland suggest if there’s a real problem here it’s underestimation of future sea level rise. IPCC synthesis reports offer conservative projections of sea level increase based on assumptions about future behavior of ice sheets and glaciers, leading to estimates of sea level roughly following a linear upward trend mimicking that of recent decades. In point of fact, observed sea level rise is already above IPCC projections and strongly hints at acceleration while at the same time it appears the mass balance of continental ice envisioned by the IPCC is overly optimistic (Rahmstorf 2010 ).
skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise.htm
 
LeafByNiggle said:
As for the argument that if climate change were happening then Ridgerunner ought to be experiencing it, I can see how it has sensory appeal. But there are many phenomena in physics that people do not experience immediately or directly. For example, low level radiation is not felt at all - until it causes cancer or cell damage. But we do have scientific instruments that can detect radiation immediately. Not very many people possess these instruments, so they would be unable to experience the fact. Climate change is also measurable with sophisticated scientific tools. Not everyone possess these tools, so they may not say they experience climate change.
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My “tools” are the flora and fauna.

Roadrunners are very climate-sensitive. They don’t exist north of Springfield, Mo, but they do exist south of it. That has not changed since I was a kid. Cattle egrets are climate-sensitive. They live about 30 miles south of here, but not here, and that hasn’t changed either. Check it out, and you’ll see that it’s true.

For tall fescue to thrive long enough for two cuttings, the “cool season grass warmup” has to start within a narrow time frame and last into a narrow time frame. North of here, it doesn’t work because the season doesn’t start early enough. South of here, that second cutting doesn’t work because it gets too warm too soon and it goes dormant. You can’t economically raise Bermuda more than a few miles north of Springfield. But you can here. Why? Because it has a demanding growing season as well. If the season is too short, it gets a late start when the ground moisture is not optimal, and the seed production doesn’t happen at the right time.

And, more delicate still, if you are growing both in the same pasture, the last fescue cutting has to be just as the Bermuda growing season is starting. Climate change in either direction of even two weeks would change all of that, dramatically.

To people who don’t deal with those kinds of things, it’s easy to imagine “climate change” based on computer models. But when you actually have to know when the climatic events begin and end, and act on them, it’s much less so.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
Since Ridgerunner says he doesn’t see climate change in Missouri, I took at look at what the University of Missouri College of Agriculture Food and Natural Resources says about that. Here is the first paragraph:
*Unusually mild weather impacted Missouri during October with preliminary data indicating a statewide average temperature of 62.1°F, slightly more than 5 degrees above normal and the warmest October in more than 4 decades (1971), Figure 1. It was the 8th warmest October on record, and the 9th month with above average temperatures for 2016, Figure 2. The extended 2016 warmth resulted in the 4th warmest Jan-Oct period for Missouri since 1895, Figure 3.
*
Here is how 2016 is shaping up in Missouri:
http://climate.missouri.edu/images/2016novb.gif
Of course this doesn’t prove global warming, since it is just one state in one country. But I think it shows that even in Missouri, things are heating up, and if people aren’t aware of it yet, they will be.
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No it doesn’t.

Are you aware of the climatic differences in Missouri? North Missouri borders Iowa and Nebraska, and southeast Missouri is just a few miles from Memphis, and is cotton country. Statewide measurements are meaningless. Not sure what was going on in northern Missouri this summer, but it was cooler than “normal” in southern Missouri.

And one year? Keep in mind 2016s was a strong El Nino year. If you research El Nino weather conditions back to about 1948 when you can find statistics on it, all El Nino years are cool and wet in Southwest Missouri and part of west Central Missouri, gradually warming and getting drier as you proceed east. El Nino temps are higher than normal except where the moist southern air coming from the Gulf hits coolerl, dry air coming from the northwest. Then it rains, making it cooler. The most intense zone where they meet is in northeast Oklahoma and southwest Missouri. North and east of here, the moisture effect is minimal, but they do get the warm air.

You’re talking about weather here, not climate. And as even Mark Twain noted, the weather is highly changeable.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
Since Ridgerunner says he doesn’t see climate change in Missouri, I took at look at what the University of Missouri College of Agriculture Food and Natural Resources says about that. Here is the first paragraph:
*Unusually mild weather impacted Missouri during October with preliminary data indicating a statewide average temperature of 62.1°F, slightly more than 5 degrees above normal and the warmest October in more than 4 decades (1971), Figure 1. It was the 8th warmest October on record, and the 9th month with above average temperatures for 2016, Figure 2. The extended 2016 warmth resulted in the 4th warmest Jan-Oct period for Missouri since 1895, Figure 3.
*
Here is how 2016 is shaping up in Missouri:
http://climate.missouri.edu/images/2016novb.gif
Of course this doesn’t prove global warming, since it is just one state in one country. But I think it shows that even in Missouri, things are heating up, and if people aren’t aware of it yet, they will be.
Click to expand...
I know next to nothing about this stuff, but I’m not seeing a long term trend in this longer-term chart:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

(From climate.missouri.edu/charts.php)
 
Ridgerunner said:
My “tools” are the flora and fauna.

Roadrunners are very climate-sensitive. They don’t exist north of Springfield, Mo, but they do exist south of it. That has not changed since I was a kid. Cattle egrets are climate-sensitive. They live about 30 miles south of here, but not here, and that hasn’t changed either.
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Maybe you should check the calibration on those tools. Here is a map of the range of the roadrunner:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
They appear to gotten a bit north of Springfield. Also they are absent from the east side of Arkansas and Louisiana. If they were sensitive only the climate, they would be common there since the climate is even warmer. Apparently there are other factors besides climate that restricts their range. That makes their range very unreliable as an indicator of climate.

I’m not going to bother looking up cattle egrets because my point is already made.
 
Brendan said:
Correct, there is not a specific jet nor is it owned by the Vatican. But whatever jet he flies on is dedicated to his exclusive use.

Neither you nor I could go to the Alitalia website and purchase a ticket on that same flight. So, in that sense, the jet is private.

Now there are certainly Just reasons why this is so, but the statement is still factually true.
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I just wanted to point out that the Holy Father doesn’t travel in a large 747, accompanied by just three priests and a cardinal.

I wouldn’t expect him to travel on a commercial flight for security reasons, but his carbon footprint isn’t much different than a commercial flight considering how large his entourage is (about 30 people) and the press (about 70).
 
Havard said:
I know next to nothing about this stuff, but I’m not seeing a long term trend in this longer-term chart:

https://i0.wp.com/climate.missouri.edu/charts/chart1.jpg

(From climate.missouri.edu/charts.php)
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Look more closely. The blue areas are generally to the left. The pink areas are generally to the right. Also if you restrict your attention to 1960 and forward, the trend from blue to pink is unmistakable. But the real way to do this is not to squint and try to “see” the trend. The real way is to feed the numerical data into a least squares linear regression formula and compute the slope of the best-fit line. I am quite certain it will show a positive slope, especially if you use the right half of the graph.
 
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