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

[ringil]

So if we don’t really have to listen to the Pope on matters other than faith and morals; why would he even bother to speak on them?

Is he just waisting his breath?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

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.

As I said, my observation does not prove global warming. It was not meant to. It was meant to show how unreliable anecdotal evidence is when discussing a global phenomenon. Even here you are discounting northern Missiouri because it is not where you are. Therefore I should be able to discount southern Missouri because it is not where I am. And one year? You criticize me for focusing on one year, while for your arguments you focus on one band of geography in Missouri. Same thing. The fact is global warming can really only be discussed globally.

 

[Ridgerunner]

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.

A little surprised that somebody checked the long term chart?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Maybe you should check the calibration on those tools. Here is a map of the range of the roadrunner:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...svg/800px-Geococcyx_californianus_map.svg.png
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.

There are lots of roadrunner range maps, none very precise. Here’s another one.

tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.M6be134c426df563de0d7dedc47beedfco0&w=161&h=105&c=8&rs=1&qlt=90&pid=3.1&rm=2

But if you go to Branson, you’ll see them. Go to Buffalo and you won’t. Springfield is right between the two.

 

[Ridgerunner]

As I said, my observation does not prove global warming. It was not meant to. It was meant to show how unreliable anecdotal evidence is when discussing a global phenomenon. Even here you are discounting northern Missiouri because it is not where you are. Therefore I should be able to discount southern Missouri because it is not where I am. And one year? You criticize me for focusing on one year, while for your arguments you focus on one band of geography in Missouri. Same thing. The fact is global warming can really only be discussed globally.

My point about northern Missouri was that it’s very different from southern Missouri, making state averages meaningless. The climate and weather are very, very different. That’s all.

My discussing the “one band of geography” is simply to point out that if climate had changed during my lifetime, it would have had dramatic results because of the kind of climate certain things demand.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

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.

I know I said I wouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t resist looking up cattle egrets. They have an expanding range:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
that has clearly reached beyond Missouri. I doubt their spread had anything to do with global warming, but it does cast more doubt on those tools of your.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

My point about northern Missouri was that it’s very different from southern Missouri, making state averages meaningless.

I would say it is the other way around. If you are inquiring into global warming, the state averages are more meaningful, and the weather in southern Missouri is meaningless.

My discussing the “one band of geography” is simply to point out that if climate had changed during my lifetime, it would have had dramatic results because of the kind of climate certain things demand.

And as I showed in the maps of the range of cattle egrets and roadrunners, something other than climate is defining the behavior of your tools.

 

[edwest2]

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.

Thank you. If “climate change” is occurring at all, it must be big business owners that must do the most. Want to choke on CO2 and particulates now? Just go to certain parts of China and India.

Ed

 

[LeafByNiggle]

A little surprised that somebody checked the long term chart?

No, I expected they would, and it is consistent with global warming.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I know I said I wouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t resist looking up cattle egrets. They have an expanding range:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe..._spread.svg/600px-Cattle_egret_spread.svg.png
that has clearly reached beyond Missouri. I doubt their spread had anything to do with global warming, but it does cast more doubt on those tools of your.

Go to Springfield, or even Newton County, and you won’t see a single one. Go to Miami, Oklahoma, and you will. Then look and see how close the two are to each other by longitude. Imaginably in the extreme southwest part of McDonald County a person might see one.

And there is more than one kind of cattle egret. The western egret is the one that’s in Oklahoma. It barely intrudes into southeast Missouri. It’s not found in the Missouri Ozarks because it’s a bit cooler here than in the Oklahoma Green Country and in the Southeast Missouri delta.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

There are lots of roadrunner range maps, none very precise. Here’s another one.

tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.M6be134c426df563de0d7dedc47beedfco0&w=161&h=105&c=8&rs=1&qlt=90&pid=3.1&rm=2

Yes, and it essentially the same as the one I posted. It also shows them absent from eastern Arkansas and Louisiana, which shoots a hole in your theory that they are defined by climate.

But if you go to Branson, you’ll see them. Go to Buffalo and you won’t. Springfield is right between the two.

Maybe roadrunners are fans of Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Go to Springfield, or even Newton County, and you won’t see a single one. Go to Miami, Oklahoma, and you will. Then look and see how close the two are to each other by longitude. Imaginably in the extreme southwest part of McDonald County a person might see one.

And there is more than one kind of cattle egret. The western egret is the one that’s in Oklahoma. It barely intrudes into southeast Missouri. It’s not found in the Missouri Ozarks because it’s a bit cooler here than in the Oklahoma Green Country and in the Southeast Missouri delta.

So with all these other factors, how can you rely on those tools of yours as a reliable indicator of climate?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Go to Springfield, or even Newton County, and you won’t see a single one. Go to Miami, Oklahoma, and you will. Then look and see how close the two are to each other by longitude.

You have not yet established that longitude is the most relevant factor in their range. And in fact the evidence of the range map is that longitude definitely does not define their range. In Arkansas and Louisiana the boundary is a north-south line.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes, and it essentially the same as the one I posted. It also shows them absent from eastern Arkansas and Louisiana, which shoots a hole in your theory that they are defined by climate.

Maybe roadrunners are fans of the Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede.

They might be.

But they are also temperature sensitive. They apparently do not thrive in all habitats, even warmer ones. But they don’t extend far to the north, even in the Ozarks, where the habitat is otherwise very favorable for them. mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2011/06/adaptable-roadrunner

Probably other posters have moved on because of all of this. But it points out one of the real difficulties in establishing MMGW. One can find all sorts of charts and studies and maps (some contradictory, but not in the case of the western egret or roadrunners if you look at more than one map). But nobody actually experiences it.

And you still have not explained the fact that your own article shows no change in average temperatures in Missouri since 1895. Your ignoring that while picking out one El Nino year to show really wasn’t good.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You have not yet established that longitude is the most relevant factor in their range. And in fact the evidence of the range map is that longitude definitely does not define their range. In Arkansas and Louisiana the boundary is a north-south line.

Eastern Arkansas and western Arkansas are very different habitats. The same is true of Louisiana, for the most part.

I never said climate is the only determinant of their range. As the article I cited points out, they require a certain type of habitat as well. I only said they weren’t north of Springfield when I was a kid and they aren’t now, either. And they’re very climate sensitive, as that and every other article about them points out.

The fact that they don’t seem to thrive in the fever swamps of eastern Ark and La might only tell us that they don’t thrive in low-lying, boggy places.

But again, one can argue charts and graphs and even maps forever, but the reality is that nobody experiences actual climate change. The MMGW argument is much better if one talks about sea ice that nobody sees. It’s not so good when, as in Missouri, there has been no upward temperature trend since 1895, and nobody feels it on his skin.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Leaving it to whoever is still here. (Probably nobody, and I’m sorry about that)

Got to go out into the “climate change” tomorrow and work cattle. Low tonight supposed to be 27 or 28. Pretty seasonal. Sometimes it’s warm all the way to Thanksgiving, without a hard frost. But most of the time, we get at least one right before Thanksgiving. So, no surprise. But then it warms up again; sometimes all the way to Christmas. Not sure why that pattern exists.

 

[lmachine]

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.

Go to Springfield, or even Newton County, and you won’t see a single one. Go to Miami, Oklahoma, and you will. Then look and see how close the two are to each other by longitude. Imaginably in the extreme southwest part of McDonald County a person might see one.

Cursory searching shows cattle egrets are commonly found at the Squaw Creek NWR, less commonly in Iowa, and as far north as North Dakota. These are all north of Springfield.

 

[SuperLuigi]

So you are implying the Pope, who has graduate education in science, and 1000s of climate scientists don’t know anything about anything and only you know the real truth?

God is Truth. Lying is a sin. Climate change denialism is not only a sin of lying, but also of putting millions of lives in jeopardy…billions if we fail to act now and we tip the earth system into an extremely life-inhospitable regime for 100s, 1000s, perhaps even 200,000 years as happened during the end-Permian great warming that killed off 95% of life on earth some 251 million years ago. Only that time was due to natural causes, so it took a lot longer for the system to tip into an extinction-level state for 200,000 years; we humans are doing it much faster, orders of magnitude faster, as if with a vengeance for life.

Prudence requires that we do our utmost to mitigate climate change, whether or not we accept or reject what Pope Francis has to say, or what 1000s of scientists have to say.

Criticizing this idea of man-made “climate change” is not lying nor is it denialism. In many ways, climate activists are the original post-modern social justice movement that is gravely harming college campuses.

Also, many of the people who try and alarm others on climate change are not scientists, nor are they qualified to assess the situation.

Finally, disagreeing with the Pope on this issue is fine indeed, especially since evidence shows man’s role to be very limited.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

They might be.

But they are also temperature sensitive. They apparently do not thrive in all habitats, even warmer ones. But they don’t extend far to the north, even in the Ozarks, where the habitat is otherwise very favorable for them. mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2011/06/adaptable-roadrunner

How do you know the habitat in the Ozarks is favorable to roadrunners if there are no roadrunners there? Maybe there is some factor in the Ozarks that is keeping them from thriving there - something other than a too-cool climate. It seems your theory of assessing climate based on where roadrunners live is more guesswork than climate scientists who base their theories on actual temperatures and other physical phenomena that are clearly dependent on climate and little else.

And you still have not explained the fact that your own article shows no change in average temperatures in Missouri since 1895.

That’s because the graph in question does show warming over that period, and a lot of warming since 1960.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I never said climate is the only determinant of their range. As the article I cited points out, they require a certain type of habitat as well.

As long as there are other determinants that are not completely understood and which can affect the range, it is not sensible to claim that any particular restriction in their range is due to climate.

But again, one can argue charts and graphs and even maps forever…

I’m not going to buy that either. Any one can try to argue whatever point they want, and apparently forever, if this discussion is any guide. That does not mean all such arguments are equally valid. Data matters. Facts matter. Charts and graphs present data. Either they are right or they are wrong. If they are right, you have to accept what they mean. If they are wrong, you should be able to show how they are wrong. Don’t try to drag down all well-formed arguments by lumping them with ill-formed ones.

but the reality is that nobody experiences actual climate change.

The people living around the Alpine Glaciers are experiencing climate change right now. The people living in the island nation of Kiribati are experiencing climate change so much right now that they are in the process of evacuating the entire population because their island has become uninhabitable. The people living in Castiglione di Cervia have experienced climate change through an epidemic spread by Asian tiger mosquitoes. The Ozarks is really a very tiny corner of a very big world.